Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, April 3, 2025
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57 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus 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).
Follow Steven on
Twitter and/or
BlueSky.
Tariff thoughts: I am admittedly not even close to an expert, but it is absolutely wild to me that decisions impacting the global economy are being made this way. This is the kind of stuff I pulled at a previous job when I needed to pull together some rando stat at the last minute that I knew would be ignored in a biz review. Never would I be this careless on something so important.
How did Trump arrive at his new tariff rates?
And this is absolutely wild if true – did somebody on staff just ask ChatGPT or some other LLM to come up with this policy? Seriously, like middle schoolers trying to write an essay at the last minute.
If AI did it, that maybe explains why it was so thorough and managed to put tariffs on random uninhabited regions in the remotest parts of the world (though someone Russia got left out). Gotta take back our jobs from those Australian penguins.
An uninhabited island, a military base and a ‘desolate’ former whaling station. Trump’s tariffs include unlikely targets
So much winning
How about a contest to predict when he’ll change the tariffs again. I think by next Tuesday.
The next fun questions about having ChatGPT come up with these tariff formulas..
What, exactly, were these LLM’s trained on?
What other decisions have already been made based on AI hallucinations?
If there is a positive side of this.. This nonsense pretty much torpedos any rollout of AI for any decision-making at any level in the near future, so consider the AI bubble popped.
In conclusion, we simply had to destroy the world’s largest economy and dismantle our entire scientific and educational infrastructure in order to ensure a team with a trans girl never finished second place in the Mountain West volleyball standings ever again.
A 3% drop in broad US stock market futures. So much winning. Glad I’m out.
Also. 5.5% drop in WTI crude prices. Guess won’t happen at those prices? Drill, baby, drill won’t happen. What will happen is layoffs in the oil and gas industry.
@LongtimeListener: I’ve mentioned before that I do PR work. Years ago, PR was trying to pinpoint its value to clients, and someone came up with “Ad value equivalencies.” Basically, if the client is mentioned in an article, you take the length of the article and figure out what the equivalent advertisement in the paper would cost. It’s a completely made-up metric, and the logic is very questionable. Then, someone pointed out that newspapers and magazines get left in dental offices, so MORE people read those, so multipliers were added.
That’s what this feels like. Random, nonsensical processes that made sense to…someone.
Last night the tornado sirens went off right as the weather radio blared a take shelter message. We get these a lot, usually the storm is quite far away. But this time the wind and rain seemed extra strong and so we got the kids up out of bed and headed into our bare earth cellar at 10 pm.
Surveying the town damage today, it looks like the tornado touched down about half a block away.
You know how we always say “Not from the Onion”? Last night the Borowitz Report (another parody news site) had the headline “Democratic Candidates Beg Musk to Visit Their States.” Then I open up Political Wire this morning to see the following from Axios: “Democrats Beg Elon Musk to Campaign Against Them.”
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/democratic-candidates-beg-musk-to
https://politicalwire.com/2025/04/03/democrats-beg-elon-musk-to-campaign-against-them/
@Neil Hudelson: Glad you are safe. Hope your town made it through without much damage.
I stand corrected. If this is true, these idiots have come up with something far worse than AVEs:
Here’s why uninhabited islands have tariffs.
Trump’s obsession with the notion he is being cheated, or worse – laughed at – at every step of his life’s journey seems to be the prime motivator in this ridiculous tariff scheme. It doesn’t help that he seems to believe that Peter Navarro, a crank and an ass kisser, is a serious economist. Imagine the GOP and media reaction if Joe Biden came up with a plan that was simultaneously dangerous and delusional. There’d be demands for invocation of the 25th amendment and an immediate psychiatric evaluation. But for Trump? Grins and applause.
@Jen: That post was deleted due to a typo, here’s the link to the corrected post:
https://bsky.app/profile/newseye.bsky.social/post/3llvxib4xw22v
@Mikey:
Oh, FFS. They really are imbeciles.
@Mikey: Thank you for the updated link. I still cannot believe that’s how the administration approached this.
@Jen: I can. Pick the dumbest way to go about doing something, guaranteed Trump will do it that way.
@Sleeping Dog: I’ll take “forgot he imposed them and repeats the process” for sometime next week.
“The beatings will continue until morale improves.”
@Jax:
BTW, I sent you a message on Signal, but from a phone without a SIM chip (its complicated). Expect activity only late in the evening, early in the morning, or on weekends only.
What highly classified national security adventure are we planning? 😉
Good grief. Rep. Raskin says that Waltz had set up 20 Signal group chats for various crises around the world.
@Neil Hudelson: Good to hear you’re safe. Hope all is well and basically intact.
@Sleeping Dog:
When he’ll change tariffs again? I’m looking for a pool on how soon he’ll order us all to change underwear every fifteen minutes, and wear it outside our clothes so he can check, ala Esposito in Woody Allen’s Bananas. (That’s actually unfair, Trump and his party of crotch inspectors would insist on checking girls underwear under their clothes.)
How does the Unitary Executive theory stand up when the exec in question is a fruitcake? Which the world at large seems to be recognizing this morning. Who’d a thunk today I’d agree with Rand Paul and Moscow Mitch?
@LongtimeListener:
No tariffs for Russia. What’s up with that? Must have been an oversight.
@Charley in Cleveland:
It seems to me, looking in from the outside, and judging from the “andecdata” of MAGA discourse on twitter, and some US attitude polling, is this a basis of Trump’s connection to his base.
They also seem consumed by a resentful conviction that they are being cheated, somehow, by various someones.
That seems to underpin a lot of their assumptions about numerous topics: trade, defence expenditure, assistance to Ukraine, foreign aid, welfare, medical costs, etc etc.
The really odd thing about it being fixing on Trump as a champion, when it’s quite obvious Trump would con and rob them down to their underwear if he thought he could get away with it.
Memphis dodged a bullet last night. No tornadoes, just lots of rain and lightning.
A huge oak tree uprooted and fell down by the lake. Missed our boats and dock by just a few feet. That’s going to be a chore.
Now we are in for way too much rain. The ground was saturated before last night. Our house is built on an incline. I have memories of houses in our neighborhood in Marin County gradually breaking up and sliding down steep hills when heavy rains came. I am seriously getting our foundation inspected when this is over.
@Neil Hudelson:
Glad you are okay!
@JohnSF:
In my view, they are correct. They are being cheated. The game is rigged. It is tilted in favor of the Elon Musks of America and not in favor of them. There are hundreds of policies that do this. For instance, the carried interest loophole.
And folks like Trump are the ones doing the rigging. It’s not that he would steal from them if he could. He is stealing from them. What do you think DJT stock is about? And the Trump crypto coin thingy? And Trump University? Etc, Etc.
But somehow they are convinced that the people really out to get them are university professors.
@Jay L Gischer:
That. So much that. Politics, everywhere and always, is at root about how much the wealthy and powerful will allow the rest of the country to have. And any MAGA that aren’t rich are taking the side of their enemy.
The GOPs have pulled off the best sleight-of-hand trick I’ve ever seen. Animosity toward the elite oppressors is natural and a constant. But our actual oppressors have managed to turn it against, as you say, college professors. And minorities, and immigrants, and trans, and leftists, none of whom have any actual power.
@gVOR10:
Well, trans people exist and eggs are expensive, so the only solution was to put a rapist conman in the White House and destroy the country. I mean, what were they supposed to do?
@gVOR10:
This is completely untrue. The Republicans used to know it’s untrue, and some of us still do, but they’re getting outnumbered by the selfish people who want to use the system for themselves.
Just a reminder that we may be on the verge of war with Iran. It’s not just the B2’s lined up on Diego Garcia, there are F35s flying into Jordan, and a whole range of support aircraft are either in the ME or on their way. Trump is pulling an entire carrier task force and both Patriots and THAAD from the Far East.
Meanwhile, remember the Houthis Trump totally wiped off the map? They’re still shooting at ships and apparently took down two Reaper drones with SAMs. I guess not the SAMs that were wiped off the map.
If the Ayatollahs don’t buckle – and they still might – we’ll have an excellent distraction from crashing markets.
China may decide to seize the moment. After all, trade is being strangled, their economy is in trouble, and they may calculate that Putin can bully Trump into letting China blockade Taiwan.
One more FP note: I see no one has mentioned that Palestinians in Gaza are demonstrating against Hamas, and Hamas is murdering them. Too far off the prevailing narrative?
@becca:
Thanks for checking in with us. Very glad you and Mr. Becca and Ms. Sadie are safe.
@Neil Hudelson:
Good to hear you and the family are okay.
@Fortune: Exaggerated? Certainly. Completely untrue? Your bias is showing. The GOP didn’t acquire the handle of “The Country Club party” back in the 50s (maybe even earlier, I’m only in my 70s) just for the poetry of the term.
Trump has fired three NatSec officials on the advice of…Laura Loomer.
http://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgerl183j3o
According to Loomer, they weren’t sufficiently loyal to Trump.
@Michael Reynolds: The price of keeping B-2s on Diego Garcia just went up with Trump imposing a tariff of 10% on British Indian Ocean Territory, which is not a country and consists of little except the UK/US base. There’s speculation the tariff won’t actually be implemented as Trump thinks he deported Diego Garcia to Guatemala.
Oh FFS, this has to be parody:
Collins concerned budget language could lead to Medicaid cuts
@Scott:
OMG, it’s not language that could lead, it’s language intended to lead to cuts. Again, see Project 2025’s agenda and also Elon Musk’s avowed agenda to cut social safety net spending.
What she’s really objecting to is that fact that the fig leaf is too small for even her to use as cover.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has just been ordered to take on civil detainees as part of the Trump mass deportations.
Furthermore, the BOP has been ordered to terminate incentive pay for all employees. That is in fact a pay cut for BOP employees who are already at the low end of the pay scale. Because the BOP is already overpopulated and understaffed this is a powder keg just ready to blow.
I received a weather alert on my phone and turned on local abc tv to get the latest. A Special Report broke into the special weather broadcast and David Muir is reporting on the stock market and how bad the reactions to trump’s tariffs.
Scary times.
@Kathy:
I was so happy when I saw that you joined.
@just nutha:
Is it exaggerated, tho?
I guess what I’m asking, are you referring to examples of political figures who cared about improving the lives of their citizens? Or voters willing to pay higher taxes for policies that do not benefit themselves? Or is it more than that?
@Fortune: “This is completely untrue.”
Oooh, well argued! Like Aristotle, this boy.
@Kurtz:
Thanks. I’m flattered.
But see what I wrote about time. Also, I’m not that good with live chats. And a lot depends on finding a way to use a website or desktop app.
@wr: gVOR10 made an assertion and I disagreed with it. We’re not supposed to?
@Kurtz:
That was my reaction.
I think the phrasing “wealthy and powerful” is important in the original formulation. If you restricted it to just the wealthy, it wouldn’t be true. If you phrased it in terms of just the powerful, it wouldn’t be clearly true. As stated, though, it’s almost a tautology — the powerful by definition determine how resources are (re-)allocated, and the wealthy are the ones doing (and generally resisting) the sharing. In extreme cases (e.g. successful peasants’ revolt) there is no overlap between the groups, but it’s still true.
@Kathy: My favorite part of Signal is you can share pictures. We haven’t done any live chats yet, but I think we can if we want to? Our times are kinda all over the place, too, with Beth far, far away. 😉
@Fortune:
In actual discourse, replies of “that’s not true” are typically accompanied by arguments, evidence, citations, explanation… something. Absent that, they are semantically null. They don’t even rise to the level of “expressing disagreement”.
@Michael Reynolds:
This time round, if Washington calls the UK for an RAF assist out of Cyprus, or RN destroyers sailing in harms way, I suspect the response may be on the lines of:
“New phone. Who dis?”
Also, instead of a co-ordinated air effort to cripple the Houthi in collaboration with the Saudis, the al-Saud are going “nope” and the USN is firing off large quantities of cruise missiles with marginal effect.
Not sensible.
Dr Oz is now in charge of my Medicare. After the biggest market drop since the last time Trump cashed the market, how could my day get any better?
@DrDaveT: This is a daily thread, I don’t usually see full arguments laid out here. gVOR10 didn’t present one.
@Daryl:
According to Trump, Oz is good on television. That’s Trump’s only criterion for competence. That and slobbering adoration for Trump.
@Jax:
I prefer no live chats.
I began to use and play with computers in 1982. Sometimes with the way smartphones are used, I feel I’m falling behind.
I also am trackpad illiterate. All I know is that using it like a mouse is not how it’s supposed to be used.
@Fortune:
Some of the most fleshed out arguments occur in the daily threads. Of course, that depends on the day. Plus, a wider range of topics get discussed. But that’s neither here nor there.
I will say, I take your point about gVOR’s post, but I think the foundation is too narrow and lacks the tensile strength to carry the weight of equivalence to your reply.
Speaking to your point, I’ve been posting here for 5+ years. And compared to a lot of the regulars, I am still a mere babe. We all have a lot of familiarity with each other’s stylistic and substantive habits. That familiarity gives a little bit of room to take shortcuts.
I can understand how a new member of the community can interpret that as evidence of cliquish tendencies. Especially for someone like you, who is not only a newer member of the community, but one who has mostly opposing positions to the established regulars.
I can also see why someone in your position would be tempted to write off OTB as an echo chamber. But we have all had disagreements with each other, some were damn vitriolic.
If it seems like we are being unfair because we are willing to fill in the blanks for those whose worldview is familiar to us, but don’t extend that courtesy to you, O get the feeling. I just don’t think it’s the case in this instance.
But I think the weightier critique of your claim is that gVOR’s argument is implicit to modernist political economy. Neo/classical economics takes as axiomatic that humans act out of self-interest.
Likewise, democratic theory is an attempt to reduce the influence self-interest plays in the decisions made by those in politically powerful positions. It retains centralized power to preserve the option of collective action in some domains, but (theoretically) subjects elected officials to the will of the collective—thereby also gaining some benefit from decentralization. That dovetails with the arguments for free markets as the best way to improve the human condition.
So it’s not merely familiarity, but shared understanding of the philosophical foundations of our political and economic systems.
Via analogy, I present the rub. If one attempts to argue that the Earth is flat, would you agree that they would need to do a lot more intellectual work than the person defending that the Earth is an oblate spheroid?
You are certainly free to challenge gVOR’s claim. You are free to challenge my framing of political economy. Just as you are free to argue against the widely accepted shape of the Earth. But in all cases, in my view, you have a lot more work to do in order to challenge the default view than we do in defending it.
Does that seem fair to you?
@Jax: @Kathy:
I keep odd hours. We are all on different schedules in different time zones. I am pretty sure most of the chatting will be asynchronous.
And we can talk shit about the Signal holdouts.
@Kurtz: And share pictures!! I haven’t shared the down and dirty of cattle ranching to the group chat yet, but Erik’s seen a few. And we got to see Beth hug her kids when they arrived in the UK!
It’s really been lovely for me, at least, to get to know everyone a little bit more than just screen names and avatars.
@Fortune:
Interesting gallop from “any argument at all” to “full argument”. Most people — even JKB and Paul L. — at least hint at why they believe what they said. You, on the other hand, never seem to rise to their level.
@Jax:
I may have a few photos of the late Emmie. Alas, between the black fur, black nose, and black eyes, there’s not much detail visible in the c.2004 photos taken with a cell phone from that era.
“This is completely untrue. The Republicans used to know it’s untrue, and some of us still do”
If you read the econ literature there is a fair amount of evidence that economic policy is made to favor the wealthy. We do some safety net stuff but day to day special interest, meaning those with money, usually win. It’s certainly hard to ignore that an unelected guy with no official position is remaking the US government just because he is the richest guy in the world.
Steve
@Scott:
The only surprise here is that Collins wasn’t very concerned.