Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, August 15, 2025
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34 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
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BlueSky.
My extremely minor economic metric:
Price on 12 oz bag of store brand whole coffee beans went from $7.98 to $8.98 yesterday.
@Scott: The grandkids are coming with some cousins for the weekend so I added some flaming hot lime Crunchy Cheetos to the grocery list at the request of the oldest. 5.79 for an 8 oz bag.
Wut? Frito-Lay products think an awful lot of themselves.
The coffee I buy is medium roast ground store brand for my percolator. Up from 7.99 for 29 oz to 9.99.
I don’t buy soft drinks but very very occasionally. I thought about getting some gingerale and was floored by the prices. Fortunately, the kids like plain water and don’t care for fizzy drinks.
The Trump tax I’m dreading is the veg-flation. Wonderful summer tomatoes dying in the fields because Florida farmers can’t get anyone they can afford to pick them. High tariff imported tomatoes will be the only option for most. C’est la vie, BLT!
@becca: @becca:
Veggie-flation strikes, with a warning for grocery prices
This seems important…
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/federal-court-delivers-major-win-for-black-voters-in-louisiana-state-redistricting-battle/
It’s the 5th Circuit sitting en banc. According to many, not a particularly liberal, maybe even conservative bench. They are upholding a lower court’s ruling.
Fingers crossed, this becomes a trend.
@becca: Apparently it’s on hold now.
US import prices rebound in July on higher consumer goods costs
Normally I think it’s quite gauche to bring blog post over to another blog to discuss, but this verbose flamethrower from Balloon Juice is worth it.
I’m not sure if it’s because it confirms my priors or just confirms what I’m picking up on from living here. It does confirm for me that Starmer and Streeting intend to attempt to make trans people’s lives completely impossible in the coming months. At a minimum we’re getting a bathroom ban that will send a tingle up Joanne’s leg. But just as likely is a full ban on trans healthcare & forced detransition.
I’m really curious for JohnSF’s take on the post.
@Scott:
Fortunately for me, I buy coffee only for myself, and I limit myself to 1 cup per day, and usually only on weekdays.
Egg prices are another matter. The sky-high prices in the past few years forced me to largely cut them out of my diet. My general rule is that if it goes beyond $5 for a carton of 12, it isn’t worth it.
This year they’ve heavily come down, and stores near me do deals like 3 for $10. More recently there’s been an uptick, while still being workable for me.
Egg prices are less likely to be impacted by the tariffs than coffee, but avian flu continues to be an issue.
The UK commemorates VJ Day, 80 years on.
Much suffering, and much endurance, in an honourable cause, and a well deserved victory.
“At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them”
@Beth:
On the post?
Too much invective, not enough analysis.
The key question is why the government (it’s not just a Starmer cackling in his office and plotting evil) is taking the policy positions that it is.
The Left continues to refuse to accept that it was not the Labour Right that f@cked the Labour vote in 2017 and 2019 (and arguably 2015 as well); it was Jezbo and Momentum.
“Magic Grandpa” was not magic, but toxic.
The Left hated being told that at the time, and hate it still more in retrospect.
Shooting the messenger is always silly; doing so after the fact of the meassage proving to be true is even sillier.
*Skimming lots more rather incoherent rant; bored now…*
As regards trans persons, it’s rather futile to peg the Supreme Court and Falkner as transphobic ideologues.
And to fail to see that unquestioning support for “trans identifying” sex offenders who were, patently, never trans in the first place, but simply taking the piss, and gaming the law/regulations, was very, very stupid indeed.
And also that the Exeter Clinic was making some dubious diagnoses and treatment programmes regarding teenagers.
The pendulum has obviously swung back too far; but that can be mitigated.
Simply curling up into a ball and surrendering to some “inevitable” Reform/Tory ascendancy is foolish.
So is the futility of dreaming dreams of a Left Revival that will somehow achieve the ascendancy of “right on” and never mind what the actual voters think of all this.
Rule #1 of a democracy: WIN.
And to do so, it’s idiotic to fantasise about a mode of governance that would depend upon abolishing the curmudgeonly commons, and replacing them with an electoral college of the Central London “progressive Left”.
As things stand, Labour is not only the “least worst” option, but if it can stabilize the economy, gradually ease the infrasructure and housing investment crises, etc it may open the road to much happier, more liberal, and politically stable, country.
That’s about as much as anyone can expect.
“New Jerusalems” are outside availability given the current context.
Though I suspect Labour are going to have to bite the bullet this autumn on tax increases.
And should do on taking on a whole load of vested interests: landlords, property developers, wealth funds, privatised utilities, etc etc.
This piece on Gene Simmons is not terribly compatible with a MAGA outlook.
Also, Wonkette has this quote from Gene’s interview with Spin:
While Kiss as a band was never my thing, I love the attitude shown here. Which is why I wonder why they aren’t “too woke” to get a Kennedy Center honor.
I feel like awarding Kiss a Kennedy Center award could be a bomb that blows up in Trump’s face. Onscreen, live. I think there are clearly some people working for Trump that know this, and will be working to prevent it. But Trump will also try to have things his own way, regardless of what “experts” or staff tells him.
@Jay L. Gischer:
Well, I never cared much for Kiss.
But I may well end up being a Gene Simmons fan.
@JohnSF:
You know, considering this commemoration, and how many suffered and died to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, it really does piss me off to see the President of the United States of America treating Putin as some sort of peer worthy of respect.
For the US government to come to the verge of establishing executive autocractic control of policing in its own capital.
For MAGA “influencers” to fantasize about the “ethnic cleansing” of Washington DC.
For the majority party in the United States Congress to say “whatever” about the executive taking over what are patently legislative prerogatives.
For the President of the United Statres to be bent on compelling any and all institutions of society to bow to his will, flatter his ego, and look aside from massive institutionailzed corruption.
For the US to undermine the economic, diploamtic, and security institutions that have, flawed as they may be, have underpinned the peace and prosperity of the post-WW2 epoch.
And to not just ignore, but to actively abet, environmental crises that protend massive potential damage to all humnity.
What the hell?
*0pens brandy bottle*
@Beth: My daughter shared this video with us, it’s called Debunking Transphobia
It made her feel better, perhaps you might like it. The maker is a cis man who is spectrum. He spent months tracking everything down and getting video clips and quotes from books.
She says she watched it at 1.5x speed.
My personal favorite (so far) is when Helen Joyce, when asked “what about the 2.7% of the population who is intersex” replies with “I have never met an intersex person and I’ve met thousands and thousands of people”.
This is cringeingly dumb, and coming from someone with a Ph.D. in maths. I am embarrassed to have a similar degree in a closely related field. Still I put it down to the fact she is apparently running on emotion and has disconnected her logical reasoning apparatus.
It seems that many have benefitted from watching this video, I hope that perhaps you will.
@JohnSF:
On the non-trans stuff, I’ll accept what you’re saying. Not in a sarcastic way, just accept it because I asked.
On the trans stuff, I think you’re way too sanguine. We’re about to see a bathroom ban that would make the GOP swoon. We’re also about to see a full on medical ban/forced adult detransition. He’s not called “Queer Harmer/Kid Starver” for no reason.
Right after the Supreme Court decision I went to a club. E1 in London. I was instructed, in no uncertain terms that I had to use the men’s toilet. The bathroom attendant told me no. Not because he was an ally, but because the sit down toilets were overflowing. I can’t use a urinal.
I’m guessing you’ve also heard about the M&S issue? There is a determined effort to force trans people out of employment and public life in in general. It’s worse than you think it is, and it’s about to get a whole lot worse.
A couple of specific points:
Unless you’ve lived it, you can’t understand why trans people have been stuck defending a whole lot of people you don’t want to. Everyone questions us on being trans constantly. It is a never ending barrage of questions. From family to friends to society. So many of us have experience in hiding being trans to such a degree that we are stuck defending some terrible people because we understand where they’ve been. It’s not our fault bad actors use this against us.
You need to liberate yourself from this line of thinking cause it inevitably leads to, “well, we just have to keep trans women out of bathrooms because we don’t know who’s faking”.
Why is it that trans people have the burden of proof to prove we’re normal too? For every “questionable” decision to help a kid, there are 10 that denied care to a trans kid. Condemning them suffering you can’t possibly understand. Why do we have to be 100% perfect 100% of the time? Why aren’t we allowed to make mistakes and learn how to be better?
For trans people, there is zero difference between Labour and Reform right now. Other than Reform is honest about it. Look at that thing where the Reform person was like, “yeah, some trans people look like and think they are women and they have women parts. That means that if they are put in women’s prisons they are going to get raped like crazy and that’s not right”. It’s transmedicalist as hell, but it’s honest. Labour/Starmer’s response was “So what?!”
And speaking as someone who has direct experience of it, Labour is giving off real Illinois GOP vibes. Kier Starmer is Bruce Rauner with a better accent and a cooler back story. You should be sounding the alarm and not defending him.
lol, I’m not. I’m actively suicidal. I had to beg my partner not to let me go to an English hospital. I am 100% serious, I’d rather be dropped in Gaza City than an English hospital. I’d be safer. I’m thinking about Michael Hutchins for days. I’m pretty sure Jax is scared. So, like, I’ve already “priced in” a Reform victory, cause for me it’s here.
@Jay L. Gischer: @JohnSF: I too have never cared much for Kiss, but it’s always surprised me a little because I generally like a lot of ’70s and ’80s hard rock.
There was a lot of gender-transgressive stuff going on back then. It was still relatively early in LGBT culture hitting the mainstream, and it left a big imprint on popular music, even among artists who were straight.
But there was sometimes a paradoxical quality to it, especially when you get into the so-called hair bands of the ’80s, who were kind of going for alpha-male and gender-ambiguous at the same time.
I’ve quoted it before, but I really liked Dee Snider’s tweet a while back: “Every time you sing ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ remember it was written by a cross-dressing, libtard, tree-hugging half-Jew who hates everything you stand for. It was you and people like you that inspired every angry word of that song. So Fuck Off!”
Unlike Snider (who spoke before Congress in the ’80s at the height of Satanic Panic), Simmons has a history as a conservative. I suspect some of it is due to identification with his native country of Israel and the politics that come with it; maybe also his being a rich guy. I looked over his Wikipedia page, and when it comes to his politics, it’s complex: he supported Dubya, then backed Obama in 2008, but later said he regretted it due to the ACA. That said, he sounds at least somewhat anti-Trump.
@Beth:
Obviously I haven’t lived it.
But I have two trans collegues at work who genuinely do not seem to think the situation is untenable.
The prison sex offender issue was about physically masculine persons who had not transitioned, and, it seems clear, had zero intention of doing so.
They were just faking, and it’s a mistake to think otherwise.
If there were, or are, “edge cases”, the obvious answer would be to set up a prison unit for accomodating them.
If the government refuses to do so, they should be pressed on that issue.
As regards Exeter Clinic, you also now have some persons stating they were misdiagnosed, mistreated and effectively psychologically coerced into hormone therapy as teenagers that they should not have been.
Are their experiences and views just to be ignored as irrelevant?
I can’t pretend to comprehend you own pain and anxiety, and it would be presumptuous of me to attempt to.
But I really doubt Keir Starmer has any desire to inaugurate some sort of purge of the trans.
@Beth:
Hey,
I don’t know whether it makes any difference, but I’m rooting for you.
I’m quite sure I’m not alone in this.
@Kylopod:
The oddest case was always David Bowie, who would shift from being “sexually ambiguous” to flirting with neo-fascism at the drop of a hat.
There was always a bit of diffrence between US and UK heavy metal/rock.
Oddly, given the UK was arguably the source of “heavy”.
Few in Britain ever took the “Satanic” thing all that seriously, as a social stance.
Black Sabbath were always open that it was just a bit of a theatrical pose.
Whereas is the US, given it’s far more “Christianized” conventional society, that stance was often taken far more literally as a challenge to the “normies”.
As regards Simmons: he would not be the only person inclined to be conservative and/or libertarian who despises Trump and MAGA.
@Kylopod: Right. That sounds very libertarian of Siimmons.
So yeah, we don’t agree on some core policy issues, but he ain’t going to be trying to make me, my daughter or @Beth’s life miserable because we’re “different”.
I can live with robust debates about how best to spend our money. I like democracy.
I wonder if Putin will ask for Alaska back while he’s there.
@becca:
Dotard’s Folly.
@becca:
Or propose a partition of Canada, on the basis that central Canada has loads of “ethnic Russians”?
@JohnSF:
I don’t know the facts you are describing. I do know the argument you are, whether you know it or not, making: the existence of mistakes or problems in the treatment system means that the treatment system is an absolute failure and must be treated as so unless in every case the most perfect standard is met then that person gets treatment.
Absolutely their voices should be heard; it improve treatment. Not destroy it. Your framing is to destroy treatment.
The nature of the situation is one of us is right and one is wrong. I do hope you’re right. That would be nice. But I suspect you are wildly wrong. Maybe I’m too much of a nihilist at this point, but I strongly suspect the worst is coming and we’re gonna get it soon. It’s going to be bad. We’ll see.
@drj:
Thanks. I like it and it’s nice.
Nothing says “pro-family” quite like cancelling parental/maternity leave, for some on the week they are giving birth. Pro-veteran to do this at the VA, too.
@Jay L. Gischer: I have never met a 7-foot tall black man, so Shaquille O’Neal must not exist.
@JohnSF:
Bowie actually claimed to be gay, then bi, but eventually said he was just bullshitting reporters and was entirely straight. Thus, he was a rare example of the right-wing trope alleging that straight kids say they’re queer just because it’s cool and trendy.
As for Satanism, I’ve always taken that as a form of what today we’d call trolling. It predates metal (think of the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil”). It also tended to ignore the fact that most of the references to Satan in these songs were from the standpoint that Satan was to be feared, not worshiped. But then, for a crowd that claimed a song about alcoholism was an anthem encouraging teens to off themselves, and that another song was doing the same thing because if you played it backwards you heard the words “do it” (both of those were actual claims made in court), I wouldn’t have high hopes for them to pick up those subtleties.
@Kylopod:
Yeah, most people back in the 70’s quickly figured Bowie was just masquerading.
While, oddly enough, Freddy Mercury, who was less liable to make it an issue, in some ways, was obviously not.
(Just read some of the early Queen lyrics, lol)
I still think a big difference between the US and the UK was the social setting.
In the US “Satanism” was enormously socially transgressive in the more “conventional” states/suburbs.
In the UK, more: “Whatever. Are you going to be here for Sunday lunch, son?”
The majority of the UK has not taken conventionalised Christianity to be a key aspect of the social order since about 1914, at least.
Arguably much earlier.
I recall the US “Satanic panic” and even most conservatives in the UK could hardly stop giggling about it.
(The sillier columnists in the Torygraph etc being the exceptions that test the rule.)
And like this is happening…
@Kylopod: More recently on the demonic front, a guy trying way, way too hard to be cool.
Gob smacking in so many ways it beggars description.
Before the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in Alaska today, Trump said he would be disappointed if there was no cease fire after the meeting.
Let’s see hands up from anyone, ANYONE! who thought Putin would agree to a cease fire ANYONE
@Beth: aw, sweetie… hang in and hang on.
@Kylopod:
I’m gonna half to give KISS another try. Mr. Snider can write some blistering rhetoric.
@Michael Reynolds:
Just a clarification–Dee Snider is the frontman for Twisted Sister, not Kiss.