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The article focuses on the issue of practices of politics in the U.S. in context to the qualitative and quantitative work for the development of the country regarding the issue of legal, social and political development by the Republican Party of the U.S. It mentions the incidence of null votes for the 2009 Stimulus Bill by the Republican Party and highlights the slowing of the Government.

Particularly in the current economic climate, one might understandably question the wisdom of some Republicans' anti-tax panacea prescription. While it should be noted that one cannot tar all Republicans with the same vehement anti-tax brush, it is clear that such ideas have a firm hold on the Grand Old Party. An abridged analysis would point to the late 1960s as a time when public opinion data starts to move against taxes, with major events of the late 1970s and early 1980s cementing this ideological plank. Looking at such data strongly suggests that earlier public opinion trends provided a setting in which the first major sparks of anti-tax ideology could succeed—the 1978 tax revolts (particularly California's Proposition 13) and the 1981 federal tax cut (the Economic Recovery Tax Act). One finding of this paper notes that public opinion and institutional settings provided the critical window of opportunity for these ideas to take hold. Policy entrepreneurs also play a critical part, though they had failed in previous settings where neither public opinion nor political institutions were ripe for such change. Different schools of thought on the public's tax opinions are contrasted, using NES data to evaluate these different claims. These opinions can be predicted by partisanship for the last thirty years and were additionally predictable by racial views and particularly economic conditions three decades ago. Time can only tell what will happen to extreme anti-tax views in the future, but most signs point to them being unsustainable. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of American exceptionalism has bewitched scholars since de Tocqueville. Specifically, why has the United States never developed a successful socialist party of government? In this study different periods of the nineteenth century are analyzed to discover why socialist parties did not emerge (or major parties become socialist). Considering the emergence of industrial life, rising economic conflict, and comparative socialist success elsewhere during this time, the nineteenth century is thought to be a relatively susceptible era for socialism. What is found is that in different periods throughout this century racial politics were able to trump labor. First, the most common competing theories of why socialism has failed are addressed. Second, a comparative analysis is done with Australia, which (sans slavery) had similar political and economic conditions. Thirdly, a historical analysis is done for periods of high conflict during the nineteenth century. From the predictions of a regional party fault line to abolitionists stealing labor's fire to Reconstruction's economically equalizing policies being defeated by racist attitudes, this theme repeats itself. I stop short of the Populists, whose racial egalitarianism (and its subversion) has already been studied. Lastly, the emergence of a stable two-party system after the Civil War continues to make it difficult for socialist third parties to compete when they are unable to convert a major party. As the paradigm here is to look at periods of high conflict to explain socialism's absence, this work only explains the United States at its most vulnerable to this ideology. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the important but elusive relationship between the modern presidency and social movements. Although the presidency-social movement nexus is fraught with tension, collaboration between the White House and social activists was indispensable to the important changes that occurred during the second half of the twentieth century. Focusing especially on Lyndon Johnson's uneasy but critical relationship to the Civil Rights movement and Ronald Reagan's enlistment of the Christian Right into the Republican Party, we trace the emergence of a novel form of politics since the 1960s that joins executive prerogative, grass roots insurgency, and party polarization. Johnson1s efforts to leverage presidential power to advance Civil Rights played a critical role in recasting the relationship between national administration and social movements, one that paved the way for a national conservative offensive. The relationship forged between Johnson and the Civil Rights movement has echoes in the similar joining of the Reagan presidency and the Christian right, an executive-insurgency alliance that instigated the transformation of the Republican Party and spurred the development a new presidency-centered party system by the end of the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]