Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, April 14, 2025
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50 comments
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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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China, Vietnam sign agreements on supply chains, railway cooperation
To put into some historical context. China and Vietnam have often been in conflict with each other though that seems to be in the past.
Vietnam has been a signatory to the Trans Pacific Partnership that the Obama administration established. The deal was aimed at China; however, out of spite, killed it. The China was not part of that deal.
Losing friends is so America First.
3-2-1 Blastoff!
My word for today is duenna. A Spanish term for Governess or chaperone.
The word came up because I just began reading Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana. It is the first Greene novel I have read. I have read most of William F Buckley’s Blackford Oakes novels and have always kept access to a dictionary handy when doing so. Curiously the second word of OMIH is the N word.
The first chapter dealt a lot with vacuum cleaners and the second with a 16-year-old girl who prays novenas in order that her father purchases her a horse. I am working on chapter three now which has a trip to the men’s loo in it.
I will probably finish this book by the end of the week. Was OMIH the inspiration for Le Carre’s The Tailor of Panama. TTOP or either of Buckley’s two Cuba set novels* could be up next for me.
By the end of the week I will be in Istanbul. Dear wife and I depart Florida on Wednesday. We’ll be gone 10 days.
For the trip we’re flying Turkish Airlines Business Class. I have heard very good things about this service. It has to be an improvement on Air India First Class. The less said** about my flying back and forth to India the better.
My mother died 40 years ago today. DW and I visited the cemetery this morning. Mom was 53 years old when she died and her cause of death was lung cancer. She was a heavy smoker, who couldn’t give up the habit even after having part of a lung removed in 1982. Mom’s continued smoking might not have hastened her death. The Lung cancer had metastasized by 1985. RIP Mom.
I have never smoked even once in my life. I hate cigarette smoking.
Yesterday I spent much of the day watching the Masters Golf tournament. Rory McIlroy came out on top and in doing so became only the 6th golfer to win all my legs of Golf’s grand slam.
Surprisingly I found my pulling for McIlroy. My usual inclination is to never pull for an athlete the media fawns over. Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed were also in contention yesterday and I don’t like either one of them. So McIlroy was easy to pull for. If yesterday’ golf had come down to a Reed vs DeChambeau battle, I may have switched channels and watched Gilligan’s Island instead.
*- Of the 11 Blackford Oakes novels written by Buckley, they are two of the only three I haven’t read.
**- Dirty airplane, indifferent service, my wife’s entertainment system not working at all for half the flight home.
“Jen Rubin”
…
Over at WAPO (gift link) Phillip Bump interviews one Steven Heller, author of Iron Fists: Branding the 20th-Century Totalitarian State. which predates Trump, 2008. Heller quotes a German philosopher in 1935 saying, “Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves,” Heller added, “Fascism is the aestheticizing of politics.” I think “the aestheticizing of politics” nicely captures something important about Trumpism. And it’s very post-modern. Trump is definitely giving the MAGA a chance to express themselves in lieu of any substantive benefit.
Bump concludes with,
I’m cribbing from Peter Zeihan when I point to four factors that are going to hammer home sales and especially new home-building. But, since I’m a Vegas boy for the moment, and am ringed by major construction projects either begun or threatening to begin, I’ll fold in commercial construction.
1) Mortgage rates are high, as is the cost of borrowing more generally.
2) There is a labor shortage in construction because the brown people who do that work are being subtracted. But I’m sure white kids will pick up the slack hanging sheetrock and carrying bricks.
3) Building materials – wood, steel, copper – are all under sanction.
4) Old folks (me!) are aging in place rather than giving up their homes to add to the available housing stock.
Number 4 is not Trump’s fault. The other three are.
There is a metric fukton of construction being done, to include a massive new stadium for the A’s, a massive new condo development next to Fontainebleau casino, and the huge empty lot next to Sahara casino which seems to the burial place of more than one real estate genius with an ambitious plan. More costly money, more costly materials, and more costly labor – if you can find any – will, I suspect, cause these projects to stall. I wonder about the massive (everything in Vegas is massive) new guitar-shaped Hard Rock casino being built on the grave of the Mirage.
In addition, Vegas, which has already seen some soft numbers in terms of dollars gambled (lost), will lose a significant number of foreign visitors from Canada, China and Europe, plus Americans who don’t know, day by day, if they have money or don’t. All in all, I think mostly Blue Vegas will suffer thanks to the cretinous voters out in Henderson and Summerlin.
But it’ll still be Biden’s fault. Because if there’s one constant in politics it’s that Republicans will never accept responsibility for the damage they do.
@Scott:
This is very bad strategically. Vietnam hates China, hates it more than they do us. They’re threatened by China, and we were kinda sorta hoping we could go on a few dates, maybe do some deals, maybe, oh I don’t know, see if some of our old airfields and ports are still usable.
We’re alienating a potential friend, a friend in a very sweet location for any power hoping to keep the South China Sea out of the grip of the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
There’s no bottom to the MAGA barrel of stupid.
Cats, man. I’ve gotten used to being presented with many kinds of “gifts” from my cats…..live birds, dead birds, all types of rodents, I’m sure if we had snakes here (too much elevation for snakes), I’d have been gifted with a few of those, too.
Yesterday, it was a weasel. Mostly dead, thank God. I still hit it with a shovel. My cat doing the presenting seemed a little miffed I killed it all the way dead and threw it in the dumpster.
I bet that was one hell of a battle! No injuries to the cat.
@Michael Reynolds: Yep, that was what I was thinking which is why I added the info on the Sino-Vietnam conflicts.
BTW, to pick an old scab, this is why the Vietnam War was so unnecessary. Our “leaders” viewed it as halting international communism (the Domino Theory) rather than intervening in a Vietnamese civil war. As one piece of evidence, after we left, the Vietnamese turned around and smacked China in the nose and told them to get out.
Another pet peeve of mine is continuing to call China (and Vietnam) communist. Sure, they maintain some of the political structure of the state Communist parties but they are now capitalist to the core. But calling them communist panders to the American electorate.
@Michael Reynolds: I had the same reaction to China/South Korea/Japan entering a trade pact against all historical interactions. This administration is masterful at building alliances, just not ones that we are part of.
I recently caught a clip of Rahm Emanuel talking about his efforts with the Obama administration to isolate China through the Pacific Trade deal, immediately cratered by the first Trump administration. I thought Emanuel was going to cry when he summarized that we had China isolated. We walked away from that and now we are the ones being isolated.
I know the answer to this question, but why isn’t Congress completely up in arms about the continued detention of Abrego in El Salvador? Why is there no Congressional investigation? How can the administration be saying out loud that they may transfer American prisoners to a facility where the administration claims it has no further control over their detention – for. ever.?
Speaking of passover, I’ve major historical issues with that holiday.
Surviving documents and inscriptions from Egypt mention Israel once and not prominently. There’s scant mention of Jews overall. And most of what can be verified suggests a small presence of Jews in Egypt well after the Exodus might have happened, like a thousand years too late.
You’d think if a large number of Jews had been kept captive and enslaved in Egypt for generations, and if their departure were preceded by devastating things like plagues of locusts, polluted water, huge hail storms, and the mysterious murder of only first born sons all in one night, there’d be some mention of it in the land where it happened.
Then there are some outlandish theories that read more like modern conspiracy theories, like Moses was actually the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten (aka Amenhotep IV), despite the latter’s tomb at Tell el-Amarna).
But all of this comes from the Bible’s outsize influence on Western civilization. the mention of Israel noted above is on a stele (an inscribed stone) detailing a pharaoh’s campaigns in Libya, with a short mention of Israel near the end. It’s almost as an afterthought, and not connected to the Libyan campaigns; just some additional bragging by the king.
So, naturally, it’s called “the Israel stele.”
@Kathy:
Now do the four canonical Gospels.
This is funny, I hope it’s really something the brand did.
ETA: yep, it’s on the A1 instagram account. Too funny.
@Joe:
Trump seems to think this is a feature, not a bug.
@Kathy: The New Kingdom loved to talk about their embarrassments. They’d never erase their history or anything.
@charontwo:
I didn’t grow up with those fables recounted yearly, nor with mandatory viewings of de Mille’s opus about it.
@Joe:
FTFY. And I think it’s an important difference.
@Joe: 51% of Congress is shitty people with shitty values elected by as shitty people with values as shitty or worse.
@Kathy:
You’re right. The whole ‘captives in Egypt’ story is apparently mostly or all bullshit. The Pharaohs kept records and I’m pretty sure someone would have noticed frogs raining down and first-borns being slaughtered.
But of course that would play hell with gospel music. It subverts the narrative that caused Jews and Blacks to fight on the same side in the 50’s and 60’s. OTOH, while ‘we’ may not have been slaves in Egypt, we can still claim some slave roots as recently as 1945 in Germany.
Crosswalk cross talk: saying the quiet parts out loud.
@Michael Reynolds:
I’m always right, except on such occasions when I’m not.
It’s possible a small group of Jews faced mistreatment in Egypt, and decided to leave and go back to Canaan, whether they or their recent ancestors had immigrated from there. It’s also possible some were taken with Akhenaten’s monotheism, and adopted their own version of it. Akhenaten declared the one true god was the Aten, who represented the Sun’s disk (not the Sun itself, that was Ra). Though there are depictions of this god (really), it’s as near to abstract as it gets.
@Michael Reynolds:
@Kathy:
I did not see historicity as much connected to the point Jen Rubin was making.
@Rob1: Because I’m a nerd and I live here, I spent a couple minutes trying to identify the exact intersections those videos took place at. (I was successful with two out of three).
I endorse this form of protest. Strongly endorse.
I did not come to spend my working life in Silicon Valley in order to advance this slop. I’m glad to see there are other people out there like me.
@charontwo:
Neither do I. that’s why I didn’t reply to that post, but made a general comment instead.
BTW, I’m getting a page not found erro when I post. If I load the blog in a new tab, though, the comment is posted. Just FYI. I get nervous when OTB glitches.
According to the NYPost, Trump plans to renovate the White House in the style of Mar-a-Lago.
The Rose Garden will be paved over, and a ballroom will be added.
I am not joking.
@Rob1:
So, in addition to everything else, the chief nazi hates his friends.
Can’t say I’m surprised.
BTW, as far as sales go, the Xybertruck compares unfavorably to the Ford Edsel.
@Kathy: Were Edsels and Edsel dealerships the targets of terrorists?
Shit may be getting very very real in China trade war:
“Link”
I can’t find the link, but China just announced all exports of rare earths and batteries containing rare earths are semi-embargoed, any country wanting to import these needs to cut a bilateral deal with China.
Apologizing for the length, but I found this in comments at LGM: (What these posts below don’t mention is modern autos can not be built by present day methods without access to motors built using these rare earths).
“Link”
@charontwo:
As I have said before, the White House dolt really screwed the pooch when he decided to bully specifically China in his trade war.
@CSK: The news about the Rose Garden getting paved over hit several weeks ago, and there was nary a peep about it. I was surprised.
It’s amazing that we have money to renovate the White House in Barfy Oligarch Style. I thought we were all on a budget now. I mean if we’re firing the nation’s premier scientists and food safety inspectors, surely we don’t have the money to waste on redecorating, particularly in his gawd-awful taste.
@Fortune: “Were Edsels and Edsel dealerships the targets of terrorists?”
For those of you having trouble following “Fortune,” in his mind a terrorist is someone who criticizes Elon Musk while a great patriotic freedom fighter is someone who tries to burn down Josh Shapiro’s house on Passover with his family in it.
@Jen: ” I mean if we’re firing the nation’s premier scientists and food safety inspectors, surely we don’t have the money to waste on redecorating, particularly in his gawd-awful taste.”
What did you think we were saving that money for?
@wr: another thoughtful and considered comment
@charontwo: Does this give Trump the pretense to push forward on the “conquering Greenland” stuff?
@Fortune:
I, for one, would be very careful in expanding the use of terms like “terrorist” to things like the type of property damage to these sorts of cases. Especially if you want to claim to take moderate positions. I’ll also note that warning this is keeping with a lot of the rhetoric that came from the Right when there was a lot more interest in Right Wing domestic “terrorists.”
As we’ve seen with “hate crimes,” which were initially implemented to be used in cases where local criminal legal systems refused to vigorously prosecute and convict on cases where race/gender/etc was a critical component of the crime. Now, there are lots of cases where it’s used to double dip on charging or coercively force pleas.
FWIW, this also goes for my fellow travellers on the left as well. This stuff goes both ways (see what’s happening right now with the increasingly politicized DoJ).
@charontwo: “As I have said before, the White House dolt really screwed the pooch when he decided to bully specifically China in his trade war.”
But to the extent leading Democrats have recently said they support tariffs targeting China, just not Trump’s global tariffs, I’m not sure they can claim the high ground here . . . (looking at you, Gretchen Whitmer, et al)
I just found NYT piece on the rare earths from China:
“NYT Gift”
@charontwo:
As I’ve said before, it’s all very well initiating a trade war with one major economy, i.e. China.
It’s quite another thing to do so while also failing to “staff out” the consequences for supply chains, financial markets, and while seriously annoying a whole bunch of other players.
It will be interesting to see if the administration now attempts to coerce other countries into imposing similar tariffs on China.
The EU in particular may be inclined to tell Trump to forget about that.
@charontwo:
The trend of the past decade or two has been “Just In Time” supply models for manufacturing. This is a policy of creating systems which get the materials to the labor as it seems. Reduces inventory, need for storage space, and helps in cash-flow.
However, it’s a system highly vulnerable to major supply disruptions such as those being created by a trade war. We may see a lot of disruption in a hurry. What’s the first thing you do in construction without materials? Tell the labor to stay home.
@dazedandconfused:
I though the Just in Time practice began to change after the disruptions brought about by the trump pandemic. Not, I hasten to add, that I expected supply chains to be redone in such a short time.
@Jax: Your cat attacked JKB and you finished him off with a shovel?!?!!? I knew prairie women were gangster and all but DAMN!
@CSK: Put a disco ball and a coke bar in it as well—-Have to stop reacting with shock to these people and dare them to double down. America needs to see the utter depravity and classlessness of these people to create a window for pushback.
@Joe:
I would pay good money to watch Rahm Emanuel cry. I’d pay even more for the opportunity to kick him in the balls. The only person on earth that Chicagoans hate more than Lori Lightfoot is Rahm Emanuel.
Hatred of Rahm Emanuel is one of the few things that absolutely unites Chicagoans. That and throwing/fishing out Divy bikes from the Lake.
@Joe:
I would pay good money to watch Rahm Emanuel cry. I’d pay even more for the opportunity to kick him in the balls. The only person on earth that Chicagoans hate more than Lori Lightfoot is Rahm Emanuel.
Hatred of Rahm Emanuel is one of the few things that absolutely unites Chicagoans. That and throwing/fishing out Divy bikes from the Lake.
So, there’s this link: https://substack.com/home/post/p-161102136
This makes sense to me.
In all cases, a reply to Fortune should start with the text of the reply in Arkell v Pressdram.
The Cybertruck’s sales started dropping well before they started burning. It came in 2 years late, cost more than predicted (average sales cost is over $100,000) and range is less than expected. It has seen numerous recalls. Added to all of the problems they impose a $50,000 fine on you if you sell it within the first year of ownership.
Comparing it with the Edsel is interesting as they have a number of things in common. Both had/have quality issues, were too pricey, and both had lots of negative reactions to their appearance. I think a major difference was that the Edsel makers focused on selling the car while the Tesla owner concentrates on insulting its customers.
Steve
@Matt Bernius:
Forget Connor and JKB. Maybe even Paul L. They are what they are. They know it. Sure, they think they are right. We don’t think they are. That is all normal. They are not dangerous beyond repeating bullshit. Paul may have the potential for violent action the other two do not, but I don’t think that any of us truly knows that nor can any of us do anything about it.
Fortune is not those things. That person is far worse. The others come through the front door, screaming and yelling. They are exactly what one expects from partisanship as an ideology in itself. They are politicians without the official status and the advisors and the speechwriters who know when to soften the rhetoric. Fortune is not—the rhetoric is always calculated, but appears natural.
Fortune is the person that feigns moderation. Fortune is the one that manages to seem, to a casual observer, reasonable most of time, even when he is vague or incoherent or engaging in obvious fallacies. Between several of us, we have exhausted every tactic of meaningful engagement, e.g. verbal pugilism, detached questions, unadorned refutation. Yet, Fortune deploys performative victimhood, accusations of bad faith, denial of Trump support, and strategic silence—always makes the appropriate situational.
None of us seem to be able to finger exactly what is going on—is Fortune a dim bulb, a zealot, a deluded partisan, a troll, a poisonous toad? And those that think they do are treating Fortune like JKB. But that requires discounting distinctions.
No, I’m not saying I know what’s going on, either. But what I do know is that there is something different about Fortune. Whatever it is, it ain’t good.
Maybe Fortune is like the German who doesn’t support the Nazis, but whistles while walking by as a group of youths cuts the payot off a Jewish man. After all, the man doesn’t seem to be in distress, so how much danger could be present?
Perhaps Fortune is the wooden horse that hides the aggressive soldiers like JKB and Connor. It is easy to mistake Fortune as a wooden rabbit, or even a large wooden badger. But if that is indeed a mistake, and it is really a horse, what then?
But that’s the problem. An outside observer with a more common, casual approach to politics cannot distinguish between any of us. It’s hard for someone like that to see the difference between the rigor of trained academics (Joyner, Taylor, Kingdaddy, CSK, Mimai), those who engage in amateur rigor (me), professional subject-matter experts (you, Andy, others), really smart generalists (JohnSF, DrDaveT, Gustopher, MR, Kathy, Cracker, others). Note: some of those listed fit into multiple categories.
To them, we are all just vitriolic partisans who attack people like Fortune, who can easily be an avatar for them. The problem is that banning Fortune just proves that point. Further engagement only feeds the false narrative and allows Fortune to turn it into a case of unreasonable people attacking a mild-mannered moderate. Refutation, even if done calmly and respectfully, is too dry to draw attention, and usually results in crickets from Fortune.
It’s almost like Fortune is a chatbot tailored by a non/state actor. There have been enough non-sequitur comments that it would fit.
I don’t think that is true. It’s just too paranoid for me to accept. But the needle on the danger gauge is active. And none of the other meters are registering actionable information.
But whether that is true is beside the point. Fortune is a person who still risks causing problems similar to a chatbot’s hallucinatory responses. Except in that case, the user knows they are engaging with a piece of imperfect tech. In this case, there is a person behind the handle and the includes a credibility that ChatGPT does not possess.
This feels like a Turing Test adapted to test us, not the machine, like Domhnall Gleeson’s character in Ex Machina. The stakes may be small in numerical impact, but large for the participants, and salient to an outside observer.
@Kurtz: Well said.