Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Friday, January 23, 2026
·
26 comments
OTB relies on its readers to support it. Please consider helping by becoming a monthly contributor through Patreon or making a one-time contribution via PayPal. Thanks for your consideration.
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.
From Robert Guest, deputy editor of The Economist:
The next president has a doozy of a repair job, assuming we make that long with anything savalagable (big if, far from guaranteed). Hillary called the orange pedo Putin’s puppet nearly a decade ago. She was right.
Here is an opportunity for D J Trump to do a bit of grifting:
“WaPo Gift”
Maybe some dick measuring going on here.
I’m curious: What are the 8 plus wars Trump claims to have stopped?
@CSK:
Israel/Hamas
Thailand/Cambodia
Azerbaijan (note: he has no idea how to pronounce this)/Armenia
Israel/Iran (yes, really, he’s claiming this)
India/Pakistan
Serbia/Kosovo
Egypt/Ethiopia
Rwanda/DRC
Of course, he’s done nothing of the sort. Most of these are long-simmering conflicts, not wars.
@DK: One would think Trump would see pieces like this, be embarrassed, and change. I recall reading of earlier prezes that they assiduously read a variety of morning papers to ensure they got unfiltered information. Trump has a reputation for assiduously watching FOX. I suspect his minions filter every word that reaches his desk.
@gVOR10:I suspect Trump sees what the odious Stephen Miller wants him to see and nothing else. Recall the reports from Trump 1.0 that aides had to put his name into the briefings in order to get him to pay attention, and Kellyanne Conway had to coin the phrase “executive time” to soften the impact of how much time he spent in front of the TV. Trump has always been a carnival barker and a marketing/branding whiz. That’s what he knows, and that’s what he likes to do. His underlying narcissism and mendacity make him easier to manipulate by ideologues (Miller, Vought) and power hungry asshats (JD, Marco).
I read a lot, particularly mysteries and crime fiction. Frequently various fictional characters will appear in real restaurants so often that it makes me want to give them a try. Several years ago, I was in Boston tor depositions at MIT and planned, if time permitted to travel across town have a bowl of chowder and a Sam Adams at Legal Seafood where Spenser and Brady Coyle would dine. Unfortunately, time didn’t permit. The same story on a trip to L.A. where I hoped to make it to Musso and Frank’s for a chicken pot pie or the sand dabs like Elvis Cole or Harry Bosch. Again, the depositions drug on and I had to skip the meal in order to make my flight. I did make it to Elaine’s in New York where Stuart Hoag gave his basset hound beer in a saucer but sadly Elaines was closed and an Asian restaurant had replaced it. It would seem that I was meant to enjoy those restaurants exclusively in the words of the authors.
@Jen:
You left out the long conflict between Sylvania and Freedonia, which has raged for over a thousand years.
Brits are a little pissed.
Trump sparks UK backlash with claim NATO allies swerved Afghan frontlines
I felt comments by leading British politicians a little subdued and diplomatic (why, I don’t know) but those by lesser lights were far more on point.
Surprised that there was no commentary on Prince Harry’s participation in Afghanistan with parallel commentary on the Trump family’s dodging decades of service.
For those who were relieved by the status quo ante tantrum “deal” achieved in Davos this week, remember El Taco called off attacks on Iran last week? Well, not so much.
The world should do something about Iran. And as soon as someone figures out what will help, I’m sure several countries will act. Right now, aside from (more) sanctions and moral support, I see little else that has a chance of working. Air strikes won’t help the protesters.
The Guardian has a pretty scary piece, Democrats are campaigning as if the 2026 election will be fair. That’s a mistake . It quotes historian Robert Kagan,
It lists a few suggestions made by Project 2025 and others:
– Transfer election crimes to the DOJ criminal division.
– Cut funding to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
– Weaponize federal power against disfavored election officials and decisions.
– They’re already gerrymandering
– Push to allow, as Orban did, registration outside home districts to encourage “voter tourism” to get his voters to where they’re most needed. (This was the real driver for Florida’s encouraging mail-in balloting many years ago.).
Unmentioned but obvious:
– Otherwise restricting mail in ballots.
– ICE thugs outside immigrant and other minority neighborhood polling places.
The states, at least Blue states, would of course sue. But the Supremes may well do their “Irreparable harm if we don’t do a temporary injunction letting Trump do what he wants until we decide the case long after it’s become moot.”
We are bingeing Homeland on Netflix. Just finished season six.
Since the show is based on an Israeli series, its focus is on the Mideast. No party, the CIA, Mossad, or any other security force, come out smelling like roses. We do a lot of “did not see that coming”. Claire Dane’s character is kinda hard to take, but intense and interesting:
One episode is called America First. Ha! Season six has a story line that includes an Alex Jones type billionaire running an underground troll farm. Still timely.
F Murray Abraham is excellent as Dar Adal, a CIA black ops bigwig. He and Mandy Patinkin are great together .
Worth watching.
I am disappointed in my fellow veterans. I think those who actually served in the ME know that soldiers from the UK, Canada and Denmark served well and honorably. I think people should be speaking out against this but then they were pretty quiet when he went after McCain and gold star families.
Steve
Somehow I missed this. Among the bigoted, ignorant word salad El Taco delivered at Davos, he claimed the classic line “without us, you’d all be speaking German.”
Davos is in Switzerland, where German is the native language of the majority of the population.
@Jen:
Oh my Lord, what a load of horseshit.
I thought I’d share Steven’s latest post on the Ancient Geeks substack about prequels.
I won’t comment here, but will in the substack’s comment section later.
@Scott:
“A little pissed” is putting it mildly.
Regarding Prince Harry in Afghanistan, a BBC story indicates that the comparison has not been entirely missed.
Personally I think Dianne Derney’s statement says what needs to said:
.
@Kathy: Because I don’t have a substack account, and don’t feel like making one, I’ll just post here, and make a point directly referencing Dr. Taylor’s argument:
The Xindi arc in Star Trek: Enterprise would not have worked if it wasn’t in a prequel. (Let’s just assume it worked, it had some flaws because it was tied to the temporal Cold War crap)
The Federation of TNG, and even TOS, was a more enlightened humanity, and in that setting Archer would have had to be an anti-hero going rogue rather than a hero finding his way, sanctioned by his superiors.
The “noble” Federation of TNG encourages stories about when the enlightened viewpoints do and don’t work, but it starts from a very specific, very liberal place. Even the darker elements of DS9, where Earth is tipping towards fascism, or “it’s a faaaaake!”, is about the struggle to maintain this ideal.
@Gustopher:
The problem I had with Enterprise was the cable channel that showed it. They changed the time slot without warning, skipped episodes, and repeated episodes. At some point in season two, I just gave up on it.
@a country lawyer:
That reminds me of the time I was in NYC for two days. n I wanted to try good NYC Italian food and, for some reason, wanted to go to the restaurant where Solozzo being shot by Michael Corleone was filmed. “Old fashioned, good food, everybody minds their own business” was exactly what I was looking for.
Alas, “The Luna” was a real restaurant of that description when that film was shot but had been long closed.
Just for giggles. It’s Friday.
Dave Barry’s substack.
Quick snip:
Right now the United States is facing two major foreign-policy crises:
1. Greenland.
2. Where King Charles III will go to the bathroom.
I will take these crises one at a time.
In Colorado, ICE is leaving Vietnam-style “death cards” behind as an intimidation tactic.
https://www.denverpost.com/2026/01/23/colorado-immigration-arrests-ace-of-spades-card-vehicles/
@dazedandconfused: Dave Barry! I haven’t really followed or heard much about him since maybe the ’80s, when he had a column in our local paper. Good to see he’s still going.
@dazedandconfused:
Anyone else reckon that toilet might be the TARDIS in disguise?
lol
@Kathy:
The BBC had a similar problem with one series of Babylon 5.
It was on a time slot on BBC 2 that go usurped whenever anything else came up, and mucked up the episodes. *grrr*
@Kathy:
This is a long standing American quip that really annoys the British.
And rather puzzles the Germans.
Good for a cheap laugh, but I really never thought I’d hear it said by a US president.
*sigh*
“What was that fluttering sound?”
“Oh, that. It was just the Atlantic Alliance flying away.”