Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, June 24, 2025
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60 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.
The headline of the day- 145 people pricked with syringes at France street music festival
Hmmm. Either a) Iran just rolled over like a puppy wanting a tummy rub, or b) they still have their enriched uranium and other toya hidden away. If a) we’ll likely see a lot of internal strife within the Ayatollocracy, and if b) we won’t, cuz they’re keeping their radioactive powder dry. It looks like Israel and the US have won, but I have this nagging feeling that it was too easy.
Public Notice discusses the Roberts Court’s Christian Nationalist project:
(Largely in the context of the recent decision upholding the Tennessee transbashing law).
“Public Notice”
excerpts:
…
I have an idea why Alito and Thomas prefer to not retire strategically – they are just simply enjoying themselves too much with the current court’s direction.
So, no FEMA money for tornado victims or to rebuild after Helene, but there is plenty to set up concentration camps.
I don’t know if anyone shared this yesterday, but this is worth a read. Gift link.
It seems that as ever, human beings are looking for an easy fix when things go sideways. “I had a tough year and am exhausted, someone please take care of me” is a logical reaction to hitting a wall in your personal and professional life.
I do wonder what kind of men these young women are going to end up with. They aren’t interested in being equal partners in a household, they want to be taken care of, and that requires a fairly high level of earnings.
@Jen:
But are they?
First Google hit on “young women public opinion:”
AFAIK most tradwife content is consumed by men.
@charontwo:
I have felt this has been the case for decades. It starts with which cases the Supreme Court wants to review for the upcoming year. I don’t think the Supremes go “I think this is an interesting case let’s examine the legal implications”. As if it is an intellectual exercise. Instead, they know where they want to go and choose the cases to get there.
Iran just “broke” the cease-fire.
Because of course, there is no cease-fire, just Trump bluster.
Trump’s 12-day war has just entered day 13.
And no one seems to be paying attention that the Supreme Court has eliminated 14th amendment’s due process. How fucked is that.
@Jen: I wasn’t really aware that “conservatives” were getting into healthy eating, alternative medicine, and psychedelics until maybe a year ago. Never having as much as a MySpace account or signed up for disqus, my participation in social media is what you see here. That’s a blessing and a curse. This trad mom thing sounds a lot like Phyllis Schafley, who got rich and famous lecturing women on their proper place in society, all the while being wined and dined by powerful men. In fairness, the wine may have been non-alcoholic. I think she’s still alive, but I read her son had taken over the reins of her operation. Of course!
Anyway, when the mahaha movement embraces cleaning up the environment and removing plastics from our water and food supplies, you know, the hard stuff, then I could take them seriously. Other than that, they’re just playing dress up earth mommies. Blech.
@becca:
Phyllis S. died at age 92 in 2016. I remember her well. She’s the one who hired people to take care of her kids while she practiced law and went on the road to lecture women about how they should stay home and take care of their kids.
@CSK:
@becca:
I’m very familiar with Phyllis Schlafly, she’s a St. Louis native and was still very active in politics when I started in Republican politics in Missouri. And yes, she’s exactly the type of conservative we’re talking about here–a successful lawyer busy telling other women that they shouldn’t pursue a career.
The wine probably wasn’t non-alcoholic, the Schlaflys are connected to beer/breweries.
The conservative switch to non-processed foods has been the most interesting to me. Remember, these are the same @ssholes who excoriated Michelle Obama for trying to get healthier options into school lunches, so yeah, hypocrites. The article notes that this was a pandemic thing, which makes sense. In a situation where people felt a significant loss of control, diet is one thing that we DO have control over…if we can afford to purchase (and have the time to cook) healthy meals.
My hunch is that this will be a fad for most. It’s actually really time-consuming to revamp your purchasing strategies and make things from scratch (I say this as a fairly proficient cook and baker).
@drj: Yeah, the headline is definitely in the NYT Pitchbot category. There were only 3K people at this “huge” national gathering. That said, Dems shouldn’t ignore this. There are young women out there who feel they’ve been sold a bill of goods by society…and with fewer men completing college, the share of households financially led by women will continue to grow. This, along with the fact that women continue to carry most of the scheduling load for households along with the planning and cleaning, is 100% going to lead to some of them saying “enough.” Will it be the majority? No, absolutely not. Could it have an impact on political messaging? Yes.
@Jen:
The Texas Legislature just passed SB 25 which:
This was pushed by one of the more conservative Republicans. I don’t see anything to object to.
@Scott: Oh, I agree. I’m just mad they felt compelled to tear down Michelle Obama, just to turn around and adopt pretty much everything she’d been trying to work towards. It’s infuriating.
@Michael Reynolds: And you’re right. The cease fire didn’t even last long enough for the pixels on Dr. Joyner’s post to reach room temperature. I think all you foreign policy mavens should probably take a day or 3 off to let your pronounced wisdom catch up with reality on the ground.
But this is the Internet, so…
@charontwo:
Conservatives have “known” this since 1954, it’s appropriate for liberals to be part of the experience.
@Jen: Michelle Obama’s initiative was criticized mostly for the government involvement. There’s no contradiction with a person choosing to eat well on his own. As for the school lunch programs, I remember the criticism being kids didn’t like the food they were pushing. It’s always a struggle to get kids to eat well but it highlighted the problem with top-down approaches.
@CSK: Ironic isn’t it?
This is classic Conservatism. Zero-sum economics dictates that the wealth/ opportunity pool should not be diluted by letting upstarts gain access.
Feminism probably has it’s own role, sadly. There’s always been what seemed to me an elitist thread in the “sisterhood.” I find myself harkening back to a day when an accusation about Bill Clinton had to be a big deal because the woman making wasn’t “some big hair trailer park woman.” But what would I know? I’m only a cracker, and a male one at that.
ETA: And while I’m here, though we’re louder (and more obnoxious) than the others, the abstinence/temperance cohort in Christianity has always been relatively small.
@Jen:
So, RFK Jr., but based on real science, not YouTube video conspiracy kookery?
@Fortune:
Hmmm. Yet the exact same people are fine with RFK Jr’s MAHA nuttery and related “government involvement” via a vis health initiatives rooted in whackjob broscience.
So, yeah, contradiction. Nice try tho.
@Fortune: Michelle Obama’s initiative was mostly opposed because she was an uppity
ni* black woman who overstepped by thinking that being first lady made her important or something. Just sayin’.*(Ooh. I almost lost it there. I should be more careful. One intelligent exchange with Cookie isn’t a sea change or anything.)
@charontwo: You know, once upon a time, it was the Chief who saved Obamacare with a suspected vote switch at the last moment. Scalia, who on other things, say habeas corpus could be quite the “stand up for the law” guy, was on some crazy, “eat your broccoli” thing.
For years, I cut Chief Roberts slack because of that. I’m pretty sure he wanted it, but he also knew, “this is the power to tax, and the government has it”.
Apparently not so much with the 14th Amendment. That I’m unhappy with this is an understatement. I am wondering if there’s somebody, some group, somewhere that is organizing a way to help the trans kids and their parents of states that have done this. Tennessee is a long way from me, but Idaho is closer. I’m not sure about Arizona, whether they’ve done this or not. I kind of think Nevada hasn’t but I’m not sure. Anyway, I’m asking how to help these people…
Because, my daughter’s transition was the best thing that ever happened to us as a family. Seriously, as a boy, she barely spoke to us. Now we’re tight, and she’s a lot more present and engaged.
@Jay L Gischer: May I be so presumptuous as to ask you at which age your daughter transitioned? If the question is untoward, please ignore this comment.
@just nutha:
The Heritage Foundation:
Principled conservatism everyone!
@just nutha: Do you think this was an intelligent exchange?
@Jay L Gischer: Roberts’s argument was the law doesn’t discriminate on the basis of sex, and it doesn’t. What’s wrong with his argument except you don’t like the outcome?
@Fortune: Except, yes, discriminating against trans citizens is straightforward sex discrimination, per the Roberts court’s own prior rulings. Why’s it suddenly not in this case, except the right likes the outcome?
For the same reasons government involvement in health initiatives was bad under the Obamas, now good under Trump/RFK, and Middle Eastern war was bad last week but good this week. (And why Trump 2016’s ‘leave trans people alone’ posture was fantastic, but it’s now a great political crime for Dems.)
Much like your empty commentary here, y’all writ large don’t have any actual ideas of your pan, just obediently doing and saying what Trump tells you to do at any given moment. Unprincipled, unserious, reactionary cult.
There are tons of papers on diet and nutrition. Texas adding its own wont do anything positive. Its pretty clear that it will mostly be ideologically driven to support the beliefs prominent in the MAGA circles that if you consume the right stuff you wont get sick or if you do you can cure it with correct diet and supplements, but not drugs a physician would order.
That said, its important to remember that other than some pretty specific stuff like diets for people on specific cancer chemotherapies or total intravenous feeding or enteral feedings most nutrition/diet papers are just woo and pretty useless. Most studies are poorly done and never really account for compliance issues and most are too small or not blinded or randomized well enough to be useful. Too often the results considered meaningful come from an unplanned subset the study was not designed for so the study design means the results arent meaningful even if the statistical results are positive. It would be a waste to add on any nutrition/diet courses as a requirement for medical schools. Let schools decide if they can design a meaningful course and if it would actually help students. At present, the only value could see in such a course would be to teach students what is wrong about what is broadly believed by the supplements/RFK people.
Steve
I’m going to go out on a limb here and state that
ALL OF THIS IS GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION!
(Unless the Texas legislature meets in a treehouse and uses secret decoder rings.)
Republican Party. Let the states decide…
Trump to revoke California vehicle emission rules on Thursday
Republican Party. Local control of public schools…
HHS agency threatens funding for California sex ed program over ‘gender ideology’
I got caught up with grandkids so want to add a bit to yesterday’s comments that I think Andy, Dr Taylor and others kind of ignored. There seemed to be some sort of consensus, maybe I misread it, that Iran just suddenly decided to be evil while Israel was just cruising along like a nice normal, liberal democracy. I dont think that’s the case. Let’s not forget that in Israel’s formation they engaged in many acts of terrorism themselves. Israel’s Mossad or whatever secret group they use pretty freely assassinates people they dont like around the world. Israel felt that is was justified as they were weak and its the kind of tactic stronger parties dont use. So if you are allied with say, the most powerful country(s) in the world you dont rely on terrorism.
That aside, things did change after the Shah was replaced by Khameini. We, along with the Brits, helped put the Shah in power which Iran had resented so it wasn’t unexpected that things would change. As always it gets complicated as to why Khameini then decided to pursue an anti-Israel policy. Maybe it was religious, maybe it was a convenient foreign enemy to divert attention away from domestic issues. However, that also ignores what Israel was doing. After the 6 Days war in ’67 Israel established its first (illegal) settlement on the West Bank. They then dribbled in a few more but when Likud became ascendant (Begin?) in the late 70s there was a surge in settlement activity. It’s probably not just a coincidence that the increase in activity against the Palestinians happens at the same time that Khomeini decides to become more anti-Israel, an Israel allied with the most powerful nation in the world.
Which leads to my final point. Israel is only sort of a liberal democracy. It’s maybe the best out of a bunch of bad choices in the ME area but it is lacking. It treats nearly half of its population under a different set of rules. Judged by its actions its intent all along has been to take over the entire West Bank and this is being driven by people who were elected but are basing the belief that they are entitled to that land upon their religious beliefs. Would Iran have ever made Israel the enemy it made it absent the religious based drive by some Israelis to take over all the land they once controlled? Beats me. From my POV it looks mostly like 2 nation states engaging in policies based upon their faiths so they probably find some other way to disagree but we will never know as we have chosen sides and while we have chosen the less theocratically driven nation that is less evil I think its naive to claim that Israel is the innocent, liberal democracy being portrayed by some people.
Steve
@Jen: Well, for what it’s worth, the Facebook commentaries on this particular Texas Senator Facebook page mention Michelle Obama a lot as the inspiration for the bill.
@becca:
I’ve seen it among libertarian types for decades, as well as the conspiracy crowd.
@Fortune: No. I was thinking of your comment about confirmation bias yesterday. It was probably the first truly lucid thing you’ve said since…
Maybe ever, hard to say.
Today’s comment is just boilerplate JKB.
@steve:
Repeated for truth. (And no, you haven’t misread anything.)
@steve: back in 2014 Sheldon Adelson questioned whether Israel being a democracy was of any importance. I don’t recall any major blowback. Him being such a major supporter of Israel and a big time GOP donor, I don’t recall any admonishment.
Weird, because being a democracy was front and center of American support for Israel for, like, ever.
@DK: She was 19, so none of the legal stuff would matter.
AND, I’ve known quite a few parents of younger children who transitioned who say pretty much the same thing: a couple of days or weeks after allowing transition to begin, the child becomes vibrant and alive, and parents typically go from, “I’m not sure about this” to “How can we make this happen?!”
Interestingly enough, before now, there was not much political alignment input. There were conservatives and liberals both encouraging and rejecting. TERFS are a thing, and modern-day Pharisees are a thing as well.
I wish to remind folks that I do not engage with commenters who
1) have behaved in a manner consistent with being “operatives” paid or otherwise, and
2) do not accept the full personhood of my beloved family members.
@becca: Cleek said,
Seems he was wrong. Now they’re just picking random stuff to support, driven by Trump’s whims. Trump appoints a fruitcake head of HHS, conservatives have always been against food dyes. Trump bombs Iran, anti-neocon MAGA have always been in favor of war. Trump dumps on Harvard, universities have always been anti-semitic.
Can’t tell the undying, carved in stone, eternal truths of conservatism without a program.
AOC says:
“Also, I’m a Bronx girl. You should know that we can eat Queens boys for breakfast.”
Well, at least she knows how to alleviate morning wood. So she’s got that going for her.
@steve:
Which part of Iran did Israel try to take over?
@Mister Bluster: I don’t know the stories but Trump’s probably wrong on the first one, and California can make its own decision on the second one.
@Scott: This was in Texas??? Like, that big state south of Oklahoma? Wild. Well, kudos to them.
@DK: What part of the law discriminates on the basis of sex?
@Fortune: Why doesn’t RFK Jr’s push to change school lunches qualify as “government involvement”?
@Fortune: Exchanges tend to fall to the lowest common denominator of the exchangees—so, by definition, no one can have an intelligent exchange with you involved. Even the eloquent Cracker…
@Connor: Not quite as funny as your wife’s Only Fans but keep trying sparky—you’ll make a funny one day!
From The Guardian:
I’m not going to read the article because it just won’t live up to the headline.
@DK: I never said it did. Your turn. What part of the law discriminates on the basis of sex?
@Gustopher:
Ah, g’wan. Read it. Amongst the notables attending are, reportedly, Ivanka Trump, Kim Kardashian, and Elon Musk.
@becca: At least Shelton was willing to dabble in realpolitik. I’ll give him that much.
The issue of Gaza and the West bank is, IMO, due to a clinging to “democracy” as we define it: Majority rule. Israel cannot annex the occupied areas because then the majority of Israel would then not be Jewish. I am convinced most of the residents in both places would gladly be Israeli citizens of restricted voting status IF they could get fair treatment in the courts on land rights and thereby be able to get on with their lives, but the pretense of “democracy” needs to be abandoned.
But the US public, by and large, believes that democracy solves everything for everybody, and there is nothing Israel fears more than losing US support.
@Fortune: It restricts medical care based on perceived sex of the patient (whether they are an innie or an outie at birth)
Every procedure and medicine in gender affirming care is regularly used elsewhere, far more frequently than used in transition. Even in minors.
For more details, read the briefs filed in the case. Or go play in traffic.
@Fortune:
The part where the state, not the person, decides what sex they are?
Headline today:
Get over it’: McConnell urges GOP lawmakers to ignore fury over Medicaid cuts.
After all, it’s not like these are people who will be forking over a thousand bucks for your next fundraiser. Just ignore them, let em’ suffer. I’m guessing that McConnell considers himself a Christian. He’s just not one of those wimpy Jesus-following Christians.
@Fortune: “Michelle Obama’s initiative was criticized mostly for the government involvement.”
Michelle Obama’s initiative was criticized mostly because she was a Black woman who was getting uppity, thinking she was good enough to live in the White House.
You can pretend this wasn’t the reason Republicans hate her, and you can pretend you don’t share their feelings. But you’ll never convince anyone here… aside from your fellow trolls.
@becca: “Weird, because being a democracy was front and center of American support for Israel for, like, ever.”
Back then, being a democracy was also front and center of America in general. We’ve moved past that now.
@Fortune:
You implied as much by your failure to explain the discrepancy in criticism. You claimed the push back to Michelle Obama was about not about opposition to healthy food but about opposition to “government involvement.” RFK is doing the same, but worse given his kookery. Yet he enjoys full sycophantic support of you anti-“government involvement” MAGA folks. Why the discrepancy?
I never said it did.
=)
@Lucysfootball:
It’s a confusing story — do you side with the long-haired hippie who is overturning tables and disrupting the money lenders, or the law and order types? Jesus is definitely the main character, but is he supposed to be the hero or an anti-hero?was Jesus antifa?
And when you look at a crucifix, it doesn’t really help. You could easily read that as “we nailed that motherfucker up real good.”
And if he is the son of God, is he a proper and dutiful son? Or a wayward child who needs to learn his lessons the hard way, through tough love?
Whatever the answer is, and it is debatable, I think that we can all agree that when Jesus sang “The poor will always be with us,” he was saying that they are a permanent fixture in society, and thus there is no point in helping them — it would be pure futility.
Teen idol Bobby Sherman has passed away at age 81. I remember him from occasional guest appearances (Emergency, The FBI, Murder She Wrote, Ellery Queen) on television shows I watched. RIP.
@restless: Ayup. That IS problematical for sure.
@Fortune: