"Saving America Once Again—Comparing the Tea Party and the Anti-Trump Resistance”

Description

Join Theda Skocpol, scholar and the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University, for a talk that looks at the grassroots spread of groups who mobilized to “save America” after the 2009 and 2016 elections. This talk is on Tuesday, Aug. 6 at 7 p.m. at the Jesup Memorial Library and is part of the series “Democracy: The Constitution, The Courts and The People” which is co-sponsored by the Jesup, Acadia Senior College and the League of Women Voters of Maine—Downeast. Doors to this event will open at 6:15 p.m. and there will be music from the Beech Mountain Project before the talk. Directly following the talk there will be a catered reception.
 
The 2009 and 2016 elections sparked citizen movements aimed at fostering participation and redirecting public agendas and party politics. In 2009, there was the rise of the Tea Party Movement with thousands of local groups, and after the 2016 election, there was a rise of just as many resistance groups. Skocpol who has researched the both the Tea Party and resistance groups will compare the two groups and talk about the characteristics and views of participants in each organization, as well as the structure and activities of local groups and the interplay of national and local efforts in these movements. Finally, Skocol will focus on the impact of Tea Parties and resistance groups had on (respectively) the Republican and Democratic parties as a whole.
 
Skocpol is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University, where she has also served as Dean of the Graduate School and as the Director of the Center for American Political Studies.  She is an internationally recognized scholar, who has been elected to membership in all three of America’s scholarly honor societies: the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the American Philosophical Society; and the National Academy of Sciences.  Her work covers a broad spectrum of topics and her books and articles have been widely cited in political science literature and have won numerous awards. Over the last two decades, her research has primarily focused on health care reform, public policy and civic engagement amidst the shifting inequalities in American democracy. Among the many books she has authored or co-authored are “Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life;” “Health Care Reform and American Politics” and “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.” In addition to her teaching and research at Harvard, Skocpol also serves as the Director of the Scholars Strategy Network. Skocpol speaks regularly to community groups and writes for blogs and public-interest magazines.
 
For more information on the talk, contact the Jesup at 207-288-4245.