History is not over. Leaders who flaunt it do so at terrific peril. There have been any number of short-lived, seemingly ineffectual harbinger movements. like OWS, that foreshadowed general upheaval and change. 

In the USA, the Populist Movement of the 1890's--with its critique of monopolies, banks and railroads--was crushed in the 1896 election, but its program was picked up and brought to fruition by Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive movement and FDR's New Deal. 

Other, less happy instances could be adduced.