Category Archives: Uncategorized

Rethinking the Resistance?

The New York Times suggests that Trump’s second electoral win represents a defeat for the protesters who mobilized against him, and demands a severe rethinking of strategy. The Times presents a simplistic vision of the recent past and a naïve … Continue reading

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Greater and Lesser Evils

The cliché about picking the lesser evil always recirculates around presidential elections, so frequently that it can almost pass for a nugget of wisdom. It’s not. Why would you want to vote for the greater of two evils? We expect … Continue reading

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It’s been a minute, campus protests

I’m on this show, discussing free speech and new restrictions on campus activism imposed in the wake of last Spring’s protests about the war in Gaza. https://www.npr.org/2024/10/11/1210935820/its-been-a-minute-campus-protests

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A day for Labor, 2024 (repost)

(2024) Joe Biden walked a picket line earlier this year, the first president to do so. His appearance was successful effort to show his commitment to organized labor, and labor has reciprocated; large unions have endorsed the Democratic presidential ticket, … Continue reading

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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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