Talk:Mugwumps

to Geoffrey Blodgett
I dedicate my work on this article over the last few days to you. I wish I could go back to the 1970s, maybe sneaking along a Powerbook or iMac and a printer, and write history papers for you again. (Blodgett passed away in 2001 ... he was the history professor and undergraduate advisor for whom no matter how hard I worked, no matter what I wrote, I always got an A- instead of an A. He wrote one of the first books on Mugwumps.) Cheers Geoff. --Metzenberg 09:47, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

capitalization style
The style I recommend for this article is to capitalize Mugwumps when specifically referring to the movement and it so-called members, and to lowercase the word when it is used in a general sense. --Metzenberg 10:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Mugwumps and the tariff
If anyone should feel like researching another issue about the Mugwumps, the tariff would be an interesting one. They tended to believe in free-market laissez faire economics. (That's what really bothered those liberal New Deal historians about them, and now is delighting a new generation of conservatives). However, the tariff was economic orthodoxy for the Republican northeast, and the Mugwumps never saw it as a "free market" issue. When Grover Cleveland came out against the tariff, he lost a lot of his support in northeastern industrial states that had swung the election to him in 1884. The "New Deal" generation of historians noted that Mugwumps actually had diverse interests and tended to advocate for their own economic interests on the tariff ... as in, how highminded were these guys? --Metzenberg 10:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Noteworthy Mugwumps
"Gilded Age Politics," 66.75.3.217 (talk) 02:07, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Would someone please define or explain 'Karen's heart'? American In Brazil (talk) 19:50, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 6 October 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Move. The proposal was unopposed for two weeks, and makes a solid argument. Cúchullain t/ c 19:15, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

– This article fits WP:PLURAL in that it describes a specific group or class of people. See also WP:CONSISTENCY—other political factions, like Barnburners and Hunkers, and Conscience Whigs. Additionally, since this was a specific group, "The Mugwumps" would be a common way of referring to them. It's used in the lede, for example. So I recommend that title redirect to the political faction. --BDD (talk) 18:40, 6 October 2015 (UTC) --Relisted. Natg 19 (talk) 00:44, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Mugwump → Mugwumps
 * The Mugwumps → The Mugwumps (band)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

almost forgotten political moniker
Are you sure about that? I've recently heard it used in relation to current British politics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.114.146.117 (talk) 20:47, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, Boris Johnson used the word and it got a bit of attention because nobody knew what it meant. Please resist the temptation to include that blip in this article - it might have got some limited newspaper attention for three days, but that is really not notability. The context - a Conservative attack on the Labour party prior to a British general election - is so far from what this article is about that it would be disruptive to put it in here, and it's not as though he even used the word correctly. It would, of course, be possible to put it in the article on Johnson and link from there to here... --Doric Loon (talk) 12:11, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Etymology
This article has an "origins of the word" section at the bottom, but in fact there is more and better etymological information in the lede. That should be turned around a little - maybe just move some of the details down. But I'll leave that to those of you working here. Otherwise, an excellent article, though, and very interesting. Well done! --Doric Loon (talk) 12:13, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Needs more balance with common usage of the word, not just its historical origins
This article is written as if by historians for whom all that matters is the original source material. But the concept was rejuvinated in the 1950s (per Pelsey's famous cartoon) and has had widespread impact in the decades ever since. For readers of an encyclopedia, understanding that more current context is equally (if not more) important. TruthSum (talk) 13:56, 27 October 2021 (UTC)