Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, January 15, 2026
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6 comments
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).
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Apparently house calls are not rocket science.
This does illustrate the reason why every Trek series, without fail, features a chief medical officer.
It really does seem to me that Trump is trying to spark some kind of conflict in MN. I mean, they don’t really seem to care about the collapse of support for Trump. The Administration is doubling down on everything, making it worse, which makes me think there is a plan to mess with the voting.
I mean, they already have the game plan, as it’s already been played out on the TV show House of Cards, the US version. Frank and Claire Underwood manipulate the 2016 election against opponent Will Conway, staging a terrorist threat to nullify the results, leading to a congressional vote and Claire becoming Acting President.
When I first saw the 4 or 5 episodes, I laughed it off as “impossible”. Now I’m not so sure because it looks like Trump is following the playbook note-for-note. They ran the same playbook on “Succession.” And we know how much Trump loves TV 🙂
After all, it’s not like they are regrouping and changing any of the policies or subject focus, opting for just stealing the election whole cloth. Much easier, I guess.
@Rick DeMent: It’s absolutely surreal. He loves chaos and I’m not sure if there’s anything that can stop him at this point. The Supreme Court has handed him a blank check, and Congress is terrified of retribution. Individuals can only do so much.
Plausible scenario:
Remember the claim by maduro that a portion of Guyana rightfully belongs to Venezuela? You know, that region with large deposits of offshore oil and natural gas?
Quite naturally, there was little the old dictator could do about it in the face of objections by the UK and the US. He trumped his pants in public, metaphorically, when the Royal navy sent one (1) ship to the area.
Now, suppose the new dictator, Delcy Rodriguez, tells her new bestie, “You know, Taco Supremo, the oil in Esequibo is of much higher quality and far more economical to extract than what we now have in Venezuela. Since you run my country and control my oil, perhaps it would please you if I were to take over the region for yourself.”
I’m not saying this was El Taco’s plan for Venezuela. No, he’s fixated in the largely theoretical world’s largest oil reserved of low quality heavy crude he imagines are his for the taking. But if the US were to support a Venezuelan takeover of the Esequibo region, would the UK, or any Latin American countries, dare to oppose it?
I’m not sure Venezuela is capable of taking the region over, even if no other countries get involved. Latin American militaries in dictatorships are meant more for internal repression and safeguarding the regime from rebellion or insurrection, than as an effective fighting force for battlefield deployment (see Argentina in the 1980s Falklands war).
@Rick DeMent:
@Jen:
All the oaths sworn by soldiers and elected officials to preserve and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, never considered the domestic enemy would be the federal government.
@Rick DeMent: @Jen:
It could mean that Trump has accepted the he can’t run again in 2028, so he’s going to run wild for the next three years.