Author Archives: David S. Meyer

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About David S. Meyer

Author and professor of Sociology and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine

Protest politics in the primary season

Pro-Palestine and antiwar advocates have done a good job of staging dramatic events outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. By commanding media attention, convention protest is a good way to reach the broader public. But it’s unlikely to have … Continue reading

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Protest at the Convention? Of course.

People always show up to protest at the national conventions of the Democratic and Republican Parties. The protests span the political spectrum, often including local and national issues. In looking through old reports for the second edition of The Politics … Continue reading

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Protest can build political capacity: The Case of Ferguson

Representative Cori Bush’s primary defeat last week gave The New York Times an excuse to look at the infrastructure that supported her surprise primary victory in 2020. Audra D.S. Burch’s excellent article starts with the police killing of Michael Brown … Continue reading

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Randy Kehler’s life

I met Randy Kehler a couple of times, but knew him mostly by his public actions and reputation. The picture above is from my last entry in PoliticsOutdoors, posted a little more than a year ago, a comment on Daniel … Continue reading

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Convictions and convictions (4): how sacrifice (sometimes) works

Daniel Ellsberg died of pancreatic cancer at 92, having lived a long and contentious life. As the obits everywhere tell, he started by touching every base on the career trajectory of an elite military analyst: an academic start in prep … Continue reading

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Convictions test convictions (3): Principle, strategy, and loyalty

Arraignments test convictions too. So do the bursts of detail revealed in charging documents. A few hundred* Trump loyalists, many in costume, appeared to show their support for the former president, newly indicted in the classified documents scandal. Although the … Continue reading

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Froze and Reversed the Arms Race, June 12 anniversary (reposted)

I’m reposting this reminder about the massive nuclear freeze march, part of an important campaign in the 1980s. Of course, nuclear weapons are not the most salient story today, when a war rages in Ukraine, activists across the country demonstrate … Continue reading

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Convictions test convictions (2)

The sentences for the January 6 insurrectionists are getting far more harsh. Partly, it’s because the first sentences reflected plea bargains, and then prosecutors worked up to the trials of the worst offenders–and they’re not done yet. Stewart Rhodes, founder … Continue reading

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Convictions test convictions: Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and the Republican Party (1)

Seditious conspiracy is a heavy criminal charge in the United States, hard to prove, rarely used, and harshly punished. But this week a jury convicted four members of the Proud Boys–a far right group–of the charge, along with a range … Continue reading

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May Day 2023

Same as it ever was, May Day is an international day of protest for workers rights.  Below is a picture of a march in France, where people are protesting against raising the national retirement age to 64. In France, protests … Continue reading

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