Outside the Beltway

Tuesday’s Forum

· Tuesday, May 12, 2026 · 10 comments

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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.

Comments

  1. Jen says:
    Tuesday, 12 May 2026 at 09:53

    Inflation up 3.8%, and a new CNN poll finds that 76% (!!!!) of Americans say cost of living is their biggest economic concern.

    That 3.8% increase is going to look quaint in a couple of months if this war of choice in Iran continues. I’m not sure that even Republican shenanigans on redistricting are going to help them much if this pattern holds through to, say, August/September. By then it will be baked into voters’ minds, even if the administration decides it wants to turn the ship around.

    Also, all of the money Trump is spending on nonsense sh!t like painting the bottom of the reflecting pool and ballroom (now with a $1 billion taxpayer price tag) is not going to resonate well with voters. These are easy-to-understand excess/unnecessary costs. You don’t renovate the living room if you can’t afford to buy gas.

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  2. Scott says:
    Tuesday, 12 May 2026 at 10:04

    Prediction: These ships will never be made. But not before a lot of cash is burned and paper plans are produced.

    Trump Class Battleships Will Be Nuclear Powered

    They are already making up as they go.

    The U.S. Navy says its future Trump class battleships are now set to be nuclear-powered. This is a huge development that will impact the cost and complexity of the design. With those issues in mind, now-former Secretary of the Navy John Phelan had said this was “unlikely” to happen just four weeks ago.

    The Navy has now outlined plans to acquire 15 Trump class BBGNs, one virtually every other year, between Fiscal Year 2028 and 2055. Two are also set to be ordered back-to-back in Fiscal Years 2030 and 2031. An initial official estimate has put the price tag of each of these ships at $17 billion.

    As it stands now, the Navy is still planning to order the first Trump class warship, set to be named USS Defiant, in Fiscal Year 2028.

    It will take the Navy til 2028 just to define the “operational requirements” for this. The “technical requirements” needed for contracting will take a lot longer. So far all we have is a marketing brochure.

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  3. Slugger says:
    Tuesday, 12 May 2026 at 10:04

    I have no expectations about the upcoming Xi-Trump meeting other than some bland photoops. War, peace, tariffs, and Taiwan are issues on which neither side is prepared to cede an inch. Will Chinese support for Iran change? They will want a big US concession for that.
    If we make Venezuela the 51st state, we’ll be sure to win the World Baseball Classic next time.

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  4. Sleeping Dog says:
    Tuesday, 12 May 2026 at 10:09

    People Want What They Want

    And like our puppy, they want it now.

    Every single voter in these groups was firmly against Bill Cassidy. The considered opinion of the group was that Cassidy has changed.

    How has he changed?

    “It’s one face for the media and then it’s another face for the public.”

    “If you look at Bill Cassidy 10 years ago, as opposed to today, it’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

    “I’ve worked with Cassidy and I was 100 percent behind him for every election for it all. But lately, it started with the impeachment of Trump and a lot of other things where he changes his mind. He’s just changing too much.”

    You might think that if Cassidy had been changing politically, Louisiana voters might be able to name some issues on which he’s changed. Democrats, for instance, look at John Fetterman and say, “He’s in favor of Trump’s ballroom; he’s in favor of the Iran war; he jumped to support Markwayne Mullin at DHS—and that’s all in the last 12 weeks.”

    But no. The only thing these Republicans could point to about Cassidy was his vote to convict Trump on impeachment after January 6.

    Which—sure, fine. But it’s instructive that these voters aren’t capable of saying, Voting to impeach Trump is disqualifying because Trump is right about everything.

    Instead, they construct complicated rationales to justify their base desire.

    There was actually one voter who was able to name one other thing about Cassidy that she didn’t like:

    He just seems to be very full of himself. Like he, you know, he’s an expert. And whether it be [the] political field, [the] medical field, or whatever it may be, [he] always seems like he’s got the facts behind him but rarely does he back himself up.

    He was also very vocal during Covid about how you know the importance, like, wanting to mandate the vaccine, the isolation, things like that. So, I mean, I get he has a, you know, a medical background, but um he was just, he kind of followed Fauci’s, you know, “trust the science” mantra.

    Leave aside the “doesn’t back himself up” nonsense. This voter was upset that Sen. Cassidy was supportive of Anthony Fauci and the federal government’s handling of Covid.

    Who did Anthony Fauci work for? Who was responsible for the federal government’s Covid response? Who was president in 2020?

    But of course, none of that matters. People want what they want and then they invent reasons to justify themselves.

    They don’t want Bill Cassidy. They do want Trump. So they blame Cassidy for “following” the Trump administration’s Covid policies, while holding Trump blameless for them.

    Haven’t had a chance to listen to the podcast that Last references, but if these voters are representative of the the voters who tip elections than Dems who believe that crafting the message or having a laundry list of programs and policies that they plan to implement will lose again.

    Also worth a read from this AM’s NYT. Gift link.

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  5. Sleeping Dog says:
    Tuesday, 12 May 2026 at 10:12

    @Scott:

    The good news is that irrespective of from which party that the next prez is from, this is a dead program.

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  6. Scott says:
    Tuesday, 12 May 2026 at 10:14

    Speaking of dreams. Trump ran on bringing manufacturing back to the US. To manufacture, you have to have an industrial base. I feel like we are back in the 80s with Reagan pushing a 600 ship Navy which never happened. Now we are seeing the reality.

    US Navy open to building ships overseas, new plan says

    The U.S. Navy released its fiscal 2027 shipbuilding plan Monday, laying out the possibility of the service turning to allied nations to build its vessels.

    The confirmation of potential outsourcing comes after President Donald Trump reportedly rejected previous Navy Secretary John Phelan’s suggestion to build Trump-class battleships abroad to meet the president’s desired delivery of 2028.

    …

    Phelan told reporters at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space symposium in April that the Navy was going to study the possibility of building warships outside the U.S.

    He cited labor shortages in the U.S. as a catalyst for the potential move.

    It is not labor shortage but rather actual shipyard availability.

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  7. Scott says:
    Tuesday, 12 May 2026 at 10:25

    Canada hedges its bets.

    Canada eyes Turkey as a fellow mid-power ally in weapons development

    Canada is seeking a rapid expansion of defense and industrial ties with Turkey as Ottawa looks for trusted middle-power partners amid shifting global security dynamics, Canadian Secretary of State for Defense Procurement Stephen Fuhr said during SAHA Expo 2026.

    Speaking to Defense News during his first visit to Turkey, Fuhr described Ankara as a “trusted partner” and “valuable ally,” highlighting Turkish advances in drones, counter-drone systems, ammunition production and autonomous technologies as potential areas for future cooperation.

    “The middle powers have to come together in a way they didn’t before,” said Fuhr, reflecting the Canadian political drive to establish new cooperation between the middle powers, as the United States steps back from its traditional role in the world.

    Thanks, Donald Trump, for your disgraceful abandonment of our closest ally and friend.

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  8. Scott says:
    Tuesday, 12 May 2026 at 10:29

    My little bit of happy pettiness for the morning.

    Rod Stewart praises King Charles for putting ‘little ratbag in his place’ on US trip

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  9. Moosebreath says:
    Tuesday, 12 May 2026 at 10:36

    @Slugger:

    “War, peace, tariffs, and Taiwan are issues on which neither side is prepared to cede an inch.”

    If Trump were able to control his emotions and he had an experienced and well-informed set of advisors, I might agree with you. In the reality we live in, I expect Trump to get played.

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  10. CSK says:
    Tuesday, 12 May 2026 at 11:01

    @Scott:

    I seem to be blocked from opening this link.

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