Wednesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, July 31, 2024
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60 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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The headline of the day- Patients sue hospital system after thousands possibly exposed to HIV, hepatitis
So I guess the media has decided to memory hole the Langford immigration bill that tfg, and then R’s as a whole, purposivly killed during the whole Ukraine funding negotiation that Republicans insisted on. They’re attacking Kamala on immigration, but in those articles you’d be hard pressed to see any mention of that massively important fact. They just repeat the allegation of her being the border czar and immigration issues are terrible, but totally fail in mentioning the bill they insisted on and then killed. That’s why our media totally sucks.
@clarkontheweekend:
Two months ago I finished reading Gay Talese’s The Kingdom and The Power. It is a book about the NYT from the time the Sulzberger/Ochs family bought the paper till 1969.
Talese’s book received many accolades but I found it to be very dry reading with a sometimes confusing narrative. I’ve read other books about the media, like Richarad Kluger’s excellent The Life and Death of the New York Herald-Tribune, but The Kingdom and The Power was a chore for me to finish.
The content of the Talese’s book didn’t portray the NYT in a flattering way. Jealousy, petty office politics, firing a critic aka Stanley Kauffmann for being critical, shabby treatment of award winning writers, etc. Our media isn’t perfect but this imperfect book portrayed one of its leaders as pathetic in many ways.
No, Dinosaurs Did Not Trudge Through Thick Rainforests
How do you know picking Vance as his running mate was a huge own-goal by Trump? Apparently one of the people pushing Vance was Tucker Carlson:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/30/2259306/-Inside-the-GOP-meltdown-over-JD-Vance-Unforced-errors
I mean, come on: you know how this is going to end. Bye Bye JD.
Good luck convincing anyone that “project 2025” has actually been shut down, Republicans. Link goes to a pdf of the project2025 if you haven’t read it yet.
Who could possibly have thought that objectively showing people actual Republican policy goals would entirely turn them off – and make them think Republicans are truly weird people?
@Gavin: The public’s knowledge of Project 2025 is rapidly gaining traction. The Heritage Foundation just fired the Paul Gans, the lead on the project. He had to be sacrificed. It won’t work.
Here is the Heritage Foundation head, Kevin Roberts:
Let’s parse the words:
Bravely: Really? Why attribute words like bravely to a writing exercise.
Move to the front: They see this as a war
Fight: They use and view this in battle terms
Saving America: From whom?
These are fanatics who view the US as being in an existential war of good vs evil.
Don’t forget that.
Roberts, along with a bunch of other far right whack jobs, is from Texas and the Texas Public Policy Institute, funded by Christian Nationalist oil billionaires.
These people love America. It’s Americans they hate.
@Bill Jempty:
Many workplaces, from what I can tell. Perhaps most workplaces.
@Scott:
I posted a comment about P2025 not too long ago that highlighted some of the authors and topics. Much of the post looked at Roberts.
I have a tendency to avoid hyperbole. But when I see a picture of Justice Alito, I cannot help but picture him as the Grand Inquisitor. I have little reason to doubt that Kevin Roberts is equally devout, but I struggle to see him as capable of rising beyond being a page for the Alitos of the world.
I suspect we’re just beginning to scratch the surface of the powers of the human immune system.
This is so interesting (gift link to WaPo)
Shingles vaccine linked with lower dementia risk, study shows
Well, its been about 10 days with Harris at the top of the ticket– a few observations:
1. The fundamentals have not changed–there are still a handful of voters in a few States who will decided this thing–many of those won’t know what they will do until the stylus is in their hands quite frankly.
2. The rapid reversal in news coverage, tone, and tenor–should be proof to everyone with a thinking brain that you give the media pictures and polls–and they’ll create a story and a horserace–complete with narrative arc and suspense in almost any direction within reason. A tight race and they can twist it any way they want up until election day.
3. The polls have NEVER left the margin of error–and still are built off models where more Rs and R-leanings show up at the polls–which is precisely NOT what has happened since 2020 (Ask yourself why they haven’t updated their models to the current 4-year trend?)
4. Harris–as I suspected is an Alpha. Number 1s make average to terrible number 2s. Also–she’s handicapped her performance from 2020 and has narrowed in on messaging she can authentically deliver in her natural persona–which, if you look at interviews she gave pre-2020 (when she wasn’t campaigning) is quite charming.
5. The husband thing reared its head a little in the beginning in Black male circles but didn’t stick–I think mainly because it’s clear she’s never excluded black men as partners before she got married.
6. Walz is magic–has the “it” factor. He branded DJT and JD as “weird” and it stuck–a sign of a very forceful personality. DJT on the other hand has lost some force of personality–none of his new branding is sticking.
7. Shapiro can be POTUS one day but needs some time on the campaign trail to get his midwest connection game sharpened. He can walk in any space in the northeast and southeast TODAY and connect with ease. Midwest blue collar is a different flavor (See Walz) but it easier to acquire than Deep South
8. Biden would still win the election in Nov had Dems not wet their pants. However, its between to win with excited people than with anxious backstabbers.
Have you folks seen the Bloomberg poll?
NH: Harris by 4
AZ: Harris by 2
GA: Tie
MI: Harris by 11
NV: Harris by 2
NC: Trump by 2
PA: Trump by 4
WI: Harris by 2
We still have three months to go, but the money, the volunteers, the enthusiasm, the Vance dumpster fire, Trump not dominating headlines, and now the swing state polls, it’s all looking good.
@Jim Brown 32:
I don’t think that dog will hunt. Kamala lit this race up. The entire Democratic Party had a huge jolt of hope, polls are moving, Trump is discombobulated and got zero bump despite martyring his ear for freedom or whatever. We ‘backstabbers’ were right, the whole narrative shifted overnight. I think we’re going to win, and we’re going to win like Democrats – talking about the future. And Joe Biden goes into the history books alongside Cincinatus and Washington.
@Bill Jempty: It’s not a worry, and more strictly-enforced government regulations are not necessary. The free market will take care of it. Customers will learn that this health system is not trustworthy and will seek care elsewhere.
/s
On a serious note, this is a great example of why capitalist healthcare is a bad idea. Healthcare, like prisons, police/fire protection, military, and safety things like air traffic control, should be government services provided for the good of all citizens.
@Michael Reynolds:
I dearly, dearly hope so. And I’m going to straight-up admit that I’ve been surprised by the unity–YAY!
Holding my breath until after the VP announcement, however. If current trends of “we have to win this so whomever she chooses gets our support” hold, I’ll be happy.
@Michael Reynolds:
Not to be a Debbie Downer, but it’s quite likely that we’ll need Pennsylvania.
@Jim Brown 32: Yes, you’re right. Biden would’ve won but not for his weak, backstabbing, poll-fetishist party. The bedwetting F Joe Biden loons did this great man dirty, it’s shameful. But his legacy is secure.
Fortunately, Kamala can win — as could any Democrat. Just need to shore up Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as Michigan was always in the bag. It is highly unlikely Democrats will win this election if they cannot win these states. Josh Shapiro for VP?
Didn’t stick? You sure? Straight black men are gonna be a problem, now and especially in 2026 and beyond.
@Jen:
Axios says Harris is leaning toward a governor: Beshear, Walz, or Shapiro.
@Michael Reynolds:
That makes no goddam sense.
@Jim Brown 32: The Trumpers in my dad’s social circle are driving the old man into paroxsyms of rage, poor guy.
And the disproportionate amount of anti-Kamala gay white guys I’m encountering is really getting on my nerves. I’m just ignoring it because I can’t deal with the nonsense.
@Franklin:
We’ll win PA. One big under-emphasized factor is that we generally have an excellent GOTV capability, and thanks to Donny One-Ear, the GOP apparatus has been gutted, with experienced pros being replaced by MAGA nitwits. 170,000 new swing state volunteers is a hell of a base for GOTV.
Also, if we were to win all the states Bloomberg has us currently winning or tied in, we could actually live without PA.
We may even hold the Senate and take back the House.
@Kylopod:
That’s the way I feel about the world since the Brexit vote.
A little irrational exuberance, Michael?
@Joe:
I recall this forum in 2020 and there was talk here about Texas being in play for Biden.
@Kylopod:
Since when has the world made sense?
@Bill Jempty:
Polls != “the world.”
@Bill Jempty:
Texas went to Trump by just 5 points. It probably was never truly “in play,” but it’s been inching closer to being competitive over time. Dubya won it by over 20 points. McCain and Romney were comfortably in double digits. Then Hillary lost it by just under 9 points, then Biden by just over 5.
It’s going to flip pretty soon. Probably not this year, but it will happen. The Republicans can try to put as many voter-suppression laws in place, they can gerrymander the hell out of the congressional map, but they’re just putting off the inevitable.
And when it does happen, support for ending the EC will skyrocket.
@CSK: I’m happy with anything…Fozzie Bear? Yep. Bucket of warm saliva? I’d better see “Harris-Spit 2024” bumper stickers. Etc.
More new polls. The Economist has a four-way, including Wormie, in the general, at:
Harris: 46
Trump: 44
Kennedy: 3
West: 0
Stein: 0
And Emerson has a very interesting NH poll that shows Harris with a 4 point edge one-on-one, and a 7 point edge with the various nuts included. Interesting. Harris gives up 2 to Kennedy, Trump gives up 5.
Kennedy’s ready to sell out to Trump in exchange for a chance to bring his batshittery to a Trump administration. I suspect Kamala has basically repatriated the Democrats who supported Kennedy, so going forward he may be more of a threat to Trump than to Harris. If/when Kennedy rolls over it will just look like a marriage of the weirdos.
I’ve been having a really hard time lately reading science news. I’m even thinking of paying for a subscription to Scientific American online…
Here’s the problem. you see a headline like “Unexpected effects of quantum entangled particles.” About half is an explanation of quantum entanglement. A third will describe the experiment and methodology*. A line or two will actually relate to the headline, and 99 times out of 100 it will be something minor, in error, or something that’s old news. The rest will be wild speculation about super revolutionary developments that will surely come off this.
The stuff I recall reading on SA back in prehistory when I had a physical copy subscription, or even what they published online before the world went paywall mad, was of much better quality.
*While this is important, it’s no usually something most readers can judge, and often it gets in the way of the story and feels like filler. But at least it’s not narrative about what he lead scientist did in high school, or an even worse time waster.
@Michael Reynolds: I think this still greatly overstates Cornell West’s support at zero percent…
@Jim Brown 32: I see a ton of Harris fundraising ads on YouTube. I am amazed by how much better she sounds now. I suspect some voice coaching, since her main problem was (I’ve taken a little voice training) that she was too strained, and needed to relax more.
There’s video out this morning of her saying to Trump (at a rally, regarding a potential debate), “If you have something to say, say it to my face!”. My god, that works well.
I agree that the fundamentals are still there and not that much different. If this is won or lost at the margins, right now all the marginal things are swinging Kamala’s way.
@Gavin: @Scott: Do either of you think Kevin Robert’s book due out in September will be delayed or not published at all? Especially since Vance’s foreword basically endorses 2025.
@Kathy: Try phys.org it’s my go to for new topics in physics.
@Kathy: Scientific American has slipped, in my opinion, like most print media. But, again in my opinion, still well worth the subscription price.
@wr: Thank you. I was going West? Who the hell is West?
Thought about putting this over in the “weird” thread but didn’t want to interfere with all the weirdness signaling.
Lots of discussion recently about voting and childbearing/rearing. It went as one might expect.
I’ve been thinking about this topic. Not this exact one, but what I think is the more interesting one.
That is, does being a parent change one’s perspective on voting? Change one’s voting behavior (whether and how)?
I’ve been noodling this from my own lived experience and also talking about it with some close family and friends.
I’d be interested in hearing from OTB denizens, as they (you) are much more politically focused than the people I rub shoulders with on the daily.
@Jim Brown 32:
Weird will fade.
But everything I have seen of Walz makes me love the guy. Gently teasing his vegetarian daughter that turkey is a vegetable. Random obscenities. Dressing down without looking like he’s cosplaying the working class. Saying things like “They call us socialist, but we just want to build roads and schools and make sure children eat.” He seems authentic.
I assume the fact that I immediately like him means that he is amazingly off putting to everyone else. I mean, I also like Elizabeth Warren, so my judgement doesn’t match most people’s.
@gVOR10:
Their coverage of COVID, which was not paywalled during much of the trump pandemic, was among the best during that time. It’s also the most recent I’ve read.
Okay, so Trump appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists and right from his very first answer he was hostile, dismissive, disrespectful and insulting. Do you think he did it because:
a) He feels that he will gain more votes from people like our resident trumpers by publicly putting the darkies in their place
b) He is a blithering old man that says whatever thought comes into his head and is unable to control himself
@MarkedMan:
Yes.
At last, someone has taken the tack against Republicans (not just Trump) that I’ve been hoping they would by portraying them for what they are: nosy busybodies, in everyones business all the time, peeping into bedroom windows and following people into bathrooms to check their junk. I’ve long felt this is a much more effective message in the Midwest and Mountain West than what the Dems have been pitching there. People in those places are more likely to have a deeply felt sense of privacy and a resentment of snoops, and this goes right to that.
@MarkedMan: Honestly I think he really thought that his “she’s never identified as Black before” comment was some kind of gotcha moment.
I really think he prepared that and thought it would become a thing. That somehow, her claim of being the first elected Senator of South Asian descent was a dismissal of her Black identity, and that he was publicly calling her out for it. He thought that would work. Against a Howard University graduate.
@MarkedMan: It’s nice to have some consistency in the world. You can wake up every morning and know with Trump there is never a bottom. Maybe one day he’ll dress up as Hitler and quote from Mein Kampf, at this point nothing would surprise me.
@Jen:
It’s also him projecting his ignorance and his corrupted view of the world on others. Saying this…
is a reflection of his ignorance, until recently, of her Black identity.
@Jim Brown 32:
@CSK:
@Gustopher:
Walz would be a mistake, his administration has botched the oversight of one and perhaps 2 huge financial scandals. Both involved Federal money that the state was supposed to administer. The most egregious one, was a fake program that was supposed to feed poor kids during Covid. Millions of Federal $$’s disappeared into Somalia and the Walz admin got caught with their dick in their hand. He hasn’t paid much of a price in MN, but R’s will have a field day with it. Walz as VP has the Peter Principle written all over it.
Appears the first sightings of F-16’s operational in Ukraine are being reported.
Oh, this is priceless.
The FOP had endorsed the GOP member of the Arizona Senate, because she supports law enforcement. The endorsement was rescinded after her reaction to this incident.
She ignored requests for comment from 13 News. Finally:
These people are ridiculous.
@Michael Reynolds: Yeah and the day before the election Hillary had a 6 point lead…
@Sleeping Dog:
Are the kids in Somalia not poor?
I hadn’t even heard of Walz until a few days ago, so I’m not deeply committed to him. If he has a pile of baggage then one of the others will do. If there are ongoing investigations into a program being defrauded that looks like baggage, then the same. Either way, I hope he keeps stumping for Kamala.
I like his style. He comes across as who Fetterman thinks he comes across as. But I’m a terrible judge of who other people might like.
This is why a reasonable campaign vets a candidate — make sure he isn’t mired in scandal, hasn’t called the top of the ticket “America’s Hitler,” etc.
Maybe even through a game plan for when the negatives (and there are always negatives) come up that doesn’t involve smiling when someone points out that the VP candidate called the top of the ticket Hitler and just basking in the praise.
@Matt:
Where? Nationally? And which poll? I just checked, and Bloomberg’s final poll, taken two days before the election, had Hillary up by 3 points in the popular vote. And she ended up winning the PV by 2 points–well within the MOE.
As for the swing states, Bloomberg didn’t release any swing-state polls shortly before the 2016 election (their final ones were in early October).
I think you are very much mistaken about this. I think it was a jolt of relief. I know for myself, I just checked out of all the bedwetting and rending of clothes for 3 weeks. I was still pro Joe, knew he was more than capable, but also quite aware that a narrative can take on a life of it’s own, reality and facts be damned.
Joe was smart enough to see where things were going and realistic enuf to know there was little he could do to fight it. So he sat down with Kamala and over a period of time the 2 of them* laid out a plan and a timetable for Kamala’s accession to the nomination.
I did not hear of Joe’s withdrawal from the race and his endorsement of Kamala until the next morn and the first thing I did was look for a place to donate to HER campaign. Why? Not because I thought she was a better candidate than he, but because I was relieved at the fact that all the angst was over. A decision had been made. It was done. And I wanted to say, “This is good.”
I think D’s everywhere, no matter what they thought beforehand, felt the same as I.
eta: And thanx for this @Jim Brown 32:
@Mr. Prosser: Definitely. They shit the bed drinking their own koolaide. (to mix metaphors). They have no idea how unpopular their fever dreams are with 60-70% of voters.
I think it depends on how one views one’s children. If one sees them as “mini-mes” one would vote in one’s own best interests. (“This is what I would want and so shall my children want.”) But if one sees one’s children as people in their own right, blazing trails of their own direction, one is more likely to vote for the benefit of all because they can’t know which path their child may follow.
Or at least, that (the latter) is how I look at it.
@MarkedMan: Door b).
@OzarkHillbilly:
If they didn’t, they wouldn’t lie so much. Project 20205? Never heard of it. Social Security? Err, umh, we’ll strengthen it. Abortion? States, something, something, nothing to do with me.
@Kylopod: That’s not how margin of error works in statistics.
Well..
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2016/trump-vs-clinton
I was wrong it was 2 days before the election that had polls saying up to a 6 point lead for Hillary.
I forgot that even according to RCP that Hillary had a point where she was 11.2 percentage points above Trump.
@Gustopher:
The kids in Somalia are poor, but that money was to feed kids in MN and none of the money that ended up in Somalia will feed poor kids there.
@Mimai:
Hmm, good question. I know how being a parent affected me personally, becoming more compassionate and so forth, which indirectly probably made me continue drifting to the left. But aside from local school issues and millages, I’m not sure it changed my overall behavior.
Certainly I consider myself to be voting for the whole family until the kids have their own voice. And side note, I think I signed a local petition trying to lower the voting age to 16 🙂
@Kurtz:
Errr, what? I’m assuming she means four miles left on the car (the charger is what you plug into), and if so, that’s an estimate based on normal usage. Driving faster will generally reduce your range, so her logic is backwards and she should be driving slowly back home.
I’ll kindly ignore the part about her going down.
Wish de Stijl stuck around long enough for late night OTB!
Life ain’t nothing but a fever dream……
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YklPK6DwOzM