Cain: Protestors are playing “the victim card”

GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain slammed the Occupy Wall Street protests on Sunday, dismissing the demonstrators as “people who want to protest the success of somebody else," CBS News reports.

"Part of it is jealousy," he said, according to CBS News. "I stand by that. And here's why I don't have a lot of patience with that. My parents, they never played the victim card. My parents never said, 'We hope that the rich people lose something so we can get something.' No, my dad's idea was, 'I want to work hard enough so I can buy a Cadillac — not take somebody else's.'

While unions did not join the rallies in large numbers until the protests had been under way for about two weeks, CBS News reports, Cain also suggested that the rallies were the brainchild of labor unions. He said they are designed to be a “distraction so that many people won’t focus on the failed policies of the Obama administration,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

According to the L.A. Times:

Cain’s remarks, on CBS’ Face the Nation, came amidst an escalating war of words between Republicans and Democrats over the merits of the movement, which has spread from New York to other cities across the nation, including Washington and Los Angeles.

In recent days, Republicans have tried to paint a picture of the protestors as anti-American.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., described the protestors "mobs" who have pitted “Americans against Americans,” the LA Times reports.

Meanwhile, Democrats have said they understand what’s driving the protestors into the streets.

More from GlobalPost: Biden explains Occupy Wall Street movement

"They want to be heard," Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, told CNN Sunday morning. “They're saying, in effect, that we bailed out Wall Street, and now it's time for Wall Street and corporate America to help bail out the American people.”