shouting loudly

There was a Republican debate last night.  I only caught part of it (not to worry, there will be dozens more before a single primary vote is cast). This one was remarkable for its sponsors: it was cohosted by CNN and the Tea Party.  Audience questions came from “real tea party activists.”  These, unsurprisingly, were [...]

It’s Michele Bachmann season in the political blogosphere.  A new poll shows her sharing the lead with Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses.  James Fallows points out that she’s taking steps in her latest round of media interviews to prove she’s a serious candidate.  Markos Moulitsas has a post up titled “Why Michele Bachmann Will [...]

Last night was the kickoff of the Rebuild The Dream movement.  Spearheaded by Van Jones, Natalie Foster, and Billy Wimsatt, Rebuild The Dream is designed to be a progressive “meta-brand” —  a counterweight to the Tea Party movement, that helps unite a variety of progressive causes under a shared banner.  The kickoff went well, and [...]

There are a lot of different ways for advocacy groups to use their e-mail lists.  They can mobilize. They can fundraise. They can educate or persuade. They can request feedback or user-generated content submissions. They can announce upcoming events.  Last year, I conducted a study of netroots and legacy organizations on the left, and found [...]

Some of you may have heard about how CUNY Trustee Jeffrey Weisenfeld’s slander of Pulitzer prize winner Tony Kushner kept Kushner from getting an honorary degree from John Jay. What hasn’t gotten enough traction, IMO, is that Weisenfeld is a straight-up bigot who considers Palestinians as not even human. This isn’t some quote taken out [...]

It’s been fascinating to watch the Wisconsin protests unfurl over the past 10 days.  Governor Scott Walker has chosen to stuff his budget repair proposal full of Trojan horse provisions, including “emergency” power to sell off state assets through no-bid contracts to his favorite corporate backers and an end to collective bargaining rights for all [...]

[I wrote this post one month ago, but decided to embargo it since it felt inappropriate for the moment we were in.] “@LisaMcIntire: If I knew what else to do other than following Giffords news and retweeting it, then I would do it.  Just feel helpless.” This message pretty well sums up my feelings over [...]

Warning: this will be another one of those long, reflective posts.  If you hate reading people blog about the good ol’ days, skip this one. I just had a new article come out with Policy & Internet today.  It’s all about e-petitions, the role they play in the tactical repertoire of advocacy groups, and what [...]

At a recent book talk, I heard Clay Shirky speak about the internet as “mostly producing sins of commission, rather than sins of omission.”  His point, roughly speaking, is that the lowered communication costs mean that we get more of many things.  Some of those things are negative, and when we see them, we tend [...]

Note: I’ll be spending the next few months writing a book about the new generation of internet-mediated political groups.  This post will be my first “book blog,” in which I try out new ideas that I’m planning to include in the manuscript.  Book blog pieces will be less tied to the politics-of-the-day, and will be [...]