Frustrations over a shrinking middle class and stalled economic mobility, paired with the antagonistic instincts of social media, are fueling a punishing populist environment in cities all across the country, and a handful of local Republican heavyweights are concerned about the local implications.
Former Tennessee State Rep. Ken Meyer said the community organizing work of UnifiEd – a local nonprofit created in 2014 to reform Hamilton County schools, which shares its name with a political PAC formed to influence the most recent school board and county commission races – stirred a lot of talk.
Those conversations led to the creation of Hamilton Flourishing, a nonprofit think tank fashioned after the Washington, D.C.-based conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, said Meyer, who holds a seat on the Republican Party State Executive Committee and lobbies for K12 Inc., a for-profit education company that sells online schooling and curricula.
Conservative think tanks began to gain steam after the Reagan presidency and now almost every state has one. Tennessee has The Beacon Center, which is based in Nashville.
Chattanooga’s would be one of the first city-level think tanks to be folded into the larger network of conservative think tanks across the country. Hamilton Flourishing will publish local policy recommendations and research, said Meyer, and challenge ideas that threaten conservative ideals like free-market capitalism and limited government.