Tag Archives: deficit

The Tea Party and the 2012 elections: part III

Posted on November 14, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Tea Party groups supported Republican nominee Mitt Romney and many Congressional candidates.   They lost the presidency.  They made no new gains in Congress; some Tea Partiers lost their seats, and some–like Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann, barely held on.  It wasn’t a … Continue reading →

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Where’s the peace movement?

Posted on July 2, 2012 by David S. Meyer

(This was written in response to a request from Mobilizing Ideas.  You can see related essays from Catherine Corrigall-Brown, David Cortright, William Gamson, Michael Heaney, Kathy Kelly, Lisa Leitz, and Andrew Yeo here.) Just over a decade ago, activists around … Continue reading →

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Ronald Reagan sold out conservative movements

Posted on September 15, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Successful politicians exploit, buy off, and sell out the movements that animate their campaigns.  And Ronald Reagan was a successful politician.  He came into the presidency as the embodiment of a conservative movement coalition, and left, dismissed by movement leaders … Continue reading →

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What the Tea Party won; what it cost

Posted on August 1, 2011 by David S. Meyer

As we discussed last week, professional politicians sell out movements.  Speaker John Boehner has worked hard throughout the negotiations to play to the most committed elements of the Tea Party in the House of Representatives, advocating positions that he would … Continue reading →

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Unemployment politics and the organizational deficit

Posted on July 11, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Slid into the Business section of Sunday’s NY Times, Catherine Rampell notes that the number of unemployed in the United States has climbed over 14 million, but that the unemployed are politically invisible: In some ways, this boils down to … Continue reading →

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Breaking up the Tea Party: Raising the debt ceiling.

Posted on July 5, 2011 by David S. Meyer

The unfolding debt ceiling standoff is exacerbating divisions within the Tea Party movement that have been visible from the outset.  (Confession: I started writing about this end of the Tea Party on election day, 2010.) The United States has to … Continue reading →

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Fasting against Hunger

Posted on April 4, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Mark Bittman, who wrote the Minimalist food column at the New York Times for more than a decade, announced last week that he was taking minimalism a step further, by not eating altogether.  Most of Bittman’s writing is about how … Continue reading →

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