Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, February 27, 2026
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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.
Ok folx, let’s check in on the By-Election in Gorton and Denton:
I mean, ok, like don’t threaten me with a good time Mr. Nazi. Well, I guess that means that Labour has anoth- no, wait, I’m getting word now:
Kier Starmer eats a hot bowl of Northern dogshit.
A response from yesterday:
@JohnSF:
Let’s see if I can get either of these charts to work.
The BBC says that the Greens likely cannibalized the core of the Labour vote.
I mean, I am innumerate, but Stats for Lefties has this chart that appears to support my thesis.
This election should be a wake up call for brain dead centrists and right wingers in both Labour and the Democrats. They won’t, because they are morons. To be clear, JohnSF, I don’t include you in that. I don’t think we agree politically, but I’ve seen enough of your comments to respect you as a sort of imaginary, reasonable North Star as I work my way through British politics.
I’ve seen you remark this before and I suspect there is an age & cultural difference. If im not mistaken, I’m in my late schmorties and you’re a bit older than me. Two things have radicalized me against your view of defense. The first is growing up as a U.S. citizen* first during the bullshit wars of the 80’s & 90’s then as a young adult during the Afghanistan and Iraq fiascos. And absolute fuck ton of money was poured into killing people and all it did was make the U.S. less safe and way poorer. It destabilized the world and made us ALL worse off. The second is how we’ve all been taught that the Russians were going to destroy everything with their unstoppable military power and prowess. Then the Ukrainians started whooping their asses with pitchforks, old lawnmowers and moxie (fuck you Russian warship). I am convinced, that right now, today, with her present forces and supplies, the UK could single handedly drive Russia out of Ukraine. Maybe that’s a bit hyperbole. Maybe throw in the Lithuanians and some Polish resupplies.
Honestly, I’m mostly in agreement with Polanski here.
One of the worst thing about being a parent right now is having to relive the 80’s fear of getting nuked but having to think about that happening to my kids. While I don’t agree with Polanski on leaving NATO, that appears to be his position and not the parties (I could be wrong). He is absolutely right that the relationship needs to be rebalanced and maybe expelling some U.S. forces from the UK/EU will make us all safer by making it harder for the U.S. to go to war.
Yes, I am a hippie crank and I’m just waiting for Dr. Taylor to join the drum circle.
*since I’ve moved I’ve had a real dislike of calling myself an “American”. It’s not really shame, but a kind of rejected disgust. The Vances and Heritage American crowds have sort of pushed me into a much more antebellum view in as much as I’m much more likely to refer to myself as an Illinoisan (or, proudly, a FIB). You would not be wrong to refer to me as an Illinois supremacist/separatist, a firm believer in the Illinois Khanate/Greater Illinois.
Crap, I knew I forgot something. Didn’t finish my thought on calling myself an American.
Anyways, I was working my way through those feelings when Bad Bunny’s halftime show hit. It reminded me of a time in a social studies class where we had a visiting student from Columbia. She ended up crying during a discussion of who is an “American”.
I don’t remember it as being a hostile racist thing. I remember it being a moment of genuine confusion, even for the teacher (who was one of my few protectors in that shithole). We believed we were the only Americans because we were from the U.S. she had the Bad Bunny view that we’re ALL Americans. She was, and remains, the correct side of that argument.
That’s the kind of American I want to be. When I say I’m an American, I want people to think of the beauty of the end of that Bad Bunny performance. With all the flags and culture and power. That’s the signal I want to send.
Not the cramped White nonsense 1950’s nostalgia. Not the brittle Heritage American racist bullshit. Not a garbage fake UK-Eurocentric image that doesn’t take into account who the Brits and Euros actually are today. Fuck all that.
I’m still trying to figure out how to signal that. That’s the only vision of America I’m interested in fighting for. United, prosperous, and fucking weird from North to South, Atlantic to Pacific.
Nearly blind refugee abandoned by US border patrol found dead in Buffalo
This is a little old, but I just came across it today. Really clarifies a couple of things for me.
Oh. OHHHHHHHH. That makes some things make sense.
I see you now. I get it. You’re just wrong. Hmmm.
@Kingdaddy:
All of those cops and agents should be rendered homeless and cast adrift from society. There is no earthly punishment great enough for them. They should all be fully expelled from society and shunned.
Evil, all of them. Pure evil.
https://apnews.com/article/poll-gallup-americans-israel-palestinians-democrats-republicans-2614e22b0ddabe514424680b71e1802f
Of course, this wording doesn’t make distinctions between support for Netanyahu’s government and support for Israel. Nevertheless, Netanyahu might have an all season pass to the White House, but he has lost a big chunk of the American public. If we ever have a functioning Congress again, that’s a problem for him, Smotrich, Ben-Givr, et al.
17 measles cases reported in El Paso, including 13 at ICE detention facility
I wonder what the RFK Jr and MAGA/MAHA argument will be: No vaccinations for real Americans, vaccinations for dirty immigrants.
Drones. Drones. Drones.
The future of warfare. But do we understand where it is leading?
Army orders $186 million in Switchblade kamikaze drones, tank killers
Once-reluctant Germany goes big on one-way attack drones
Israel delivers first autonomous submarine to Germany
Ukraine says Russia launched a major aerial attack before Kyiv’s talks with US
And you may ask yourself
“Well … how did I get here?”
Well, this is interesting if you want to follow the military under the Trump administration.
Operation Timeline: Day 404
Browse away.
@Scott:
Denver’s sort of holding its breath. Someone flew in from Miami, spent time at the airport, attended a wedding, then flew back to Miami, all while in the “contagious” stage of measles.
@Kingdaddy:
A detail not in the Guardian piece:
“Beast”
ETA: The puppy killing story is what persuaded Trump to pick Noem for DHS, according to the Beast.
@Kingdaddy: Our reactionary centrist punditocracy continue to, as @Beth: points out, regard the right as having no agency. And they view this shift in sympathy to the Gazans as some inexplicable lefty thing that fell from the sky. They refuse to see that Netanyahu drove the shift by murdering tens of thousands of Gazans.
@Scott:
I had to do a double-take. A weapons system priced in the millions? With an ‘m’?
I opined a while back that drone technology may be more disruptive than AI. It is already dramatically changing warfare. It’s on a par with the machine gun or the tank or even the airplane itself, in terms of its effect on earlier tactics.
But this isn’t going to be confined to the battlefield. I live on an upper floor of a high rise. In fact I’m sitting on my balcony watching the sun come up between a condo and a casino. Normally I’d feel pretty invulnerable. I mean, a guy with a rifle in a nearby building could decide to take a shot at me, but he’d be located and neutralized pretty quickly. But a drone could fly over here from anywhere and deposit a grenade. A drone could fly right into a casino without much trouble. A drone could attack cars on the Strip. Or kamikaze into the When we Were Young punk festival. Or take out cars in the F1 race. Or drop incendiaries – not here but in LA – and burn a city. Or anthrax spores cattle yards. Etc… and etc…
Ah! Right in the eyeballs! The sun popped up.
The wife and I are going to do our early voting this afternoon. Texas is open primary so we could go either Republican or Democratic. It kind of boiled down to do we vote for something or against something? Do we vote strategic or with our hearts?
Decided to vote for something and with our hearts. There seems to be no redeeming candidates on the Republican side. They’ve gone all far right, anti Islam, many anti-semitic. There was no voting for the least worst this time.
Oh, BTW, here is another type of voter suppression (for want of a better term). There are 108 ballot choices. Mostly district judges, justice of the peace, etc. About 50 are unopposed.
CNN may breathing its last gasps as a legit news org now that Paramount Skydance has officially outbid Netflix to buy CNN’s parent company. From the Daily Beast:
CNN was Ted Turner’s best idea – too bad he sold it.
@Beth:
Same applies to those left, right and center who admonish mainstream liberals not to call obvious racists racist, lest they be further provoked.
Outside of revisionist history, humanising the far right is not just the provenance of centrists (not that seeking to understand the social, economic, and ethical/moral foundations and frustrations of extremist voting lacks utility). I recall Bernie responding to Hillary’s accurate deplorables remark with a famous “I don’t think most people thinking of voting for Trump are racist or sexist” tweet. Many if not most progressives favored “economic anxiety” as the proximate cause of rising working class rightwingery, at least in Trump’s case. Despite postmortem studies showing identarian prejudice and chauvanism driving the vehicle among Trump voters of all classes — with exit polls showing his Dem opponents won the poorest voters.
Even today, some progressives will still respond to lamentations on how a majority of white voters co-signed MAGA’s very public, explicit flogging of white grievance, white resentment, and white supremacy with curious lines like, “MaNy wHiTe vOtErS dOn’T tHinK aBoUt bLacK pEopLe aT aLL.” Somehow this, even among popular claims identifying DEI, CRT, BLM, affirmative action, Obama/Kamala’s blackness etc. as upsetting enough to grow the far right’s electoral base. And even as they decry Democratic election campaigns pivoting away from a unified response to MAGA’s trans panic. Because allegedly there’s somehow more US voters who spend time thinking about the 1% of their compatriots who’re transgender than the 14% who are black, or something.
Adults who choose to vote in fascism, segregation, bigoted backsliding, hate, gay bashing, or anti-trans paranoia actually do deserve blame. Ethical accountability does not equal dehumanization.
These voters’ rationale and reasons should also be explored and understood. There’s no contradiction there. And no, it’s not just centrists mining this field. Their left and liberal frenemies have been right there on the expedition — digging for answers, pointing fingers, making excuses, shifting blame, and ultimately proposing solutions.
@Beth:
America is the name of the continent that takes up all the land in the Western hemisphere. You know, literally half the world. The name is in honor of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, and was first used in reference to South America, by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller.
Later one country appropriated the name of the continent. This does bother a lot of people not in the US.
In the interest of accuracy in names, perhaps the US should take a name more reflective of current reality. The states are hardly united. So take up some other name, like Oceania, or Western Oligarchy, or Dumbfukistan, and give the use of the name back to the rest of the hemisphere.
@Charley in Cleveland:
Ted Sarandos withdrew after meeting Trump regime officials. I’m interested to get @Eddie’s take, but my suspicion goes like this: Paramount money isn’t just Ellison money, it’s Arab sovereign wealth money. The Saudis and Emiratis have no reluctance to directly bribe Trump, and Sarandos can’t. Once Sarandos saw just how corrupt the Trumpies are willing to be he’d have realized he was fighting a losing game.
@Charley in Cleveland:
Once the merger goes through, I’ll have to cancel HBO Max.
ON better news, Anthropic has refused to do Hetseght’s bidding.
They’re still an LLM company and all that implies, but at least they have some standards.
At least for now.
In general, I think the Dems are doing a good job of getting quality candidates to run in key races this year. Yes, I even include Texas, though you may disagree.
There is one glaring exception, and that’s Maine. Here is what a UNC poll released a few days ago found:
Plattner vs. Collins: 49-38%
Mills vs. Collins: 41-40%
As if to prove that the candidate who appears to be the stronger of the two Dems hasn’t quite put his Nazi problem behind him, just yesterday he retweeted a comment by far-right anti-Semite Stew Peters.
Peters is quite a character, and the linked article mentions or links to further information about various choice things he’s said and done. I won’t rehash it all here, but let me just say that, while Holocaust deniers are a dime a dozen these days, few can claim to have started a crypto called JPROOF, where the J stands for exactly what you think it stands for. I’m not remotely joking.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have in the past occasionally posted tweets without bothering to check who wrote the tweet or look into who the person is. Of course, I am not a politician running a campaign. In any case, I am willing to grant that Plattner was guilty of carelessness in this case rather than an intentional attempt to promote a right-wing extremist. But even on those generous grounds, I find it troubling that he would not find anything potentially suspect about some rando on Musk’s platform complaining about US involvement in Middle Eastern wars. Even assuming the best of intentions on Plattner’s part, it suggests he’s ignorant of the fact that an increasingly vocal segment of the right these days adopts anti-interventionist positions for roughly similar reasons to the America First Committee in the 1940s, namely because they associate it with nefarious control from a certain bagel-eating minority.
This is not like building a temporary alliance with a few Republicans over release of the Epstein files. This is an issue where motive matters a great deal, and particularly for those who complain about being unfairly labeled anti-Semitic over criticisms of Israel, retweeting content from actual anti-Semites does not exactly help their case.
More evidence that MAGA loves America but hates most Americans.
Hegseth Says Scouting America Support to Continue Upon Org’s Commitment to Drop DEI
As a former Scout myself and having children involved in Scouts, I can say that their problems had far more to do with adults (don’t have to go into more child molestation cases) and competition from schools (bands, athletics, etc.) than DEI.
DEI is now an all-purpose swear word standing in for bigotry.
@Kingdaddy:
Oi vey, Bibi. Antisemites are on the rise in the dominant wingnut wing of the Republiqan party, and you’ve lost most Democrats. And now the independents are bailing too.
I hope it was worth it to stay out of prison.
Wait. that’s in the US. How does Europe look?
Speaking of drones…via the NYT:
The rest of the article goes on to detail communications failures. The incompetence is staggering.
@Michael Reynolds:
My take is that Netflix dodged a bullet. What it means for the industry as a whole is still to be determined. But for WBD in the near term, it means a HUGE job losses in publicity, marketing, development, facilities. CNN will be overseen by Bari Weiss. Many of your favorite CNN anchors will not have their contracts not-renewed. People like Christina Anamanpour, Fareed Zakaria, and Sanjay Gupta will be gone. Viewers will flee CNN and most of its programming will become similar to NewsNation. Don’t be surprised if people like Bill O’Reilly, Dan Abrams, and Piers Morgan end up with CNN primetime shows. Think of it as “Fox-Lite”. That’s what is going to happen to CNN.
The two studios, Paramount and WB, operated under very different business models. My prediction is that the merger will be a disaster. In a few years, some of these companies will be available for pennies on the dollar, and Netflix might buy some of them.
Paramount will suffer with the costs of the merger, and the perception that they’re a MAGA company. This will not end well for them.
On the plus side, I bought in the money call options for Netflix last Tuesday, and closed out the position this morning for a very, very nice profit.
@Kingdaddy: @Kathy:
So screw the Israeli people because of an unnecessary and ill advised potential attack on a nation on the other side of the world?
Travel Advisory Update: Authorized Departure of Non-Emergency U.S. Government Personnel and Family Members of Personnel from U.S. Mission Israel.
@Scott: I’m sure you and everyone else here knows this, but removing non-emergency personnel from a country is, generally speaking, a not very good sign.
Relactions on an election.
Greens beat Reform. Good.
Labour lost, rather badly. Bad.
Reform came second. Bad.
Reform came a long way second. Good.
LibDems came nowhere. le sigh
Conservatives got whipped. Lol.
Conservative got beaten into fourth place, and Reform are cornering the right-of-centre vote.
Not very good at all, on reflection
What’s really bad?
A very speculative statistical projection on similar, if less extreme trends, mapped onto all English constituencies, and modified for current opinion polls. And leaving Scotland and Wales as-is (because: complicated).
Reform win at worst a majority; at best, largest-single party and a majority if the Conservatives agree coalition.
Hello Prime Minister Farage.
An absoulute f@cking nightmare.
Meanwhile, in south Asia:
Pakistan states it is at war with Afghanistan
On reflection, perhaps supporting the Taliban turns out not to have worked out so well for Pakistan.
What is the Urdu for “ironic”?
@DK: Maybe if you would pull your head out of your ass long enough to put on your glasses and look around, you would realize that the 2016 and 2024 elections were not the same event repeated, and that “economic anxiety” expressed during the Black Man’s Booming Economy is a different beast from the “economic anxiety” expressed when the prices in the grocery store keep going up, and a whole lot of individuals’ wages aren’t keeping up, and even when wages are keeping up there’s sincere doubt over how long that will continue.
You’re as insufferable and willfully ignorant as a BernieBro who thinks Class is always more important than Race.
Trump was not a popular candidate in 2024, outside of the mustache twirling performative racists. He had those locked up.
The other racists? The ones who say they don’t have a racist bone in their body, and who just want the benefits of racism, but don’t want to see the overt mechanics of racism (violence, mostly, it’s icky) being used in front of them… they’re more reachable. And a lot of them were not solidly behind Trump. Reluctant Trump voters.
Race was important. But so was the economy. And if the economy was better, or the Democrats had made them feel listened to, it could have flipped that 1% of the vote that needed to flip.
And that, despite not punishing the racists and allowing you to feel good about that, would have been better for everyone, even Black people. And Queer folks. And even dumb white racists who kind of don’t deserve it.
Are the white people who voted for racism because of egg prices morally culpable for the suffering of blah blah blah? Sure, but what fucking good does that do anyone? It’s a dumb question. Do you get a donut? Fuck that, do I get a donut?
In summary: pull your head out of your ass, 2016 != 2024, and you’re as bad as a BernieBro.
And it might be a good day for a donut.
@Kylopod: I am baffled that so many people on the left don’t see right through Platner and dismiss him out of hand.
At best he is ideologically adrift and has no real convictions, and the intellectual curiosity of a cow, who will follow the path of Sinema and Fetterman.
At worst, he’s an antisemite shithead.
I expect an ideologically adrift shithead who is happy to hang out with antisemites.
A Bernie endorsement really should be a big warning flag — Bernie is a nice enough guy, but he is a shitty judge of character. He was a big Tulsi Gabbard fan. And a lot of his 2016 and 2020 campaign staffers have been on the “post-left” grifter circuit.
@Scott:
Screw the Israeli people because they have kept Butcher Bibi in power and allowed him to carry out war crimes and atrocities.
@Scott:
The UK is evacuating embassy staff from Tehran and closing the embassy; and moving diplomatic staff out of Israel.
China has advised all nationals to leave Iran immediately, and is pulling out some, but not all, embassy staff.
USS Ford group has not turned for Suez, but is taking station in waters between Cyprus and Israel.
It looks like we are now very close to the brink
@JohnSF: Yep, but everybody (including me) seems to be uncertain, if not confused, on what the objective might be, the consequences of trying to achieve that objective, and, for the US, under what authority is Trump doing this?
This has all the hallmarks of a big cluster ….
And if Americans come home dead, I then wonder how MAGA will react since they voted for Trump because he would keep us out of these adventures.
@Scott:
Whatever objective an irrational idiot with too high an opinion of his intelligence can come up with, assisted by a bunch of largely incompetent and delusional advisors.
“Adam Tooze”
@Kylopod:
@Gustopher:
We’re meeting friends from Maine tomorrow, and I’m planning on asking about the Senate race. My hunch is that Platner is benefiting from not being an old woman, which is what both Collins and Mills are. He’s direct, and is drawing significant crowds (even in snowstorms). I’m not sure if Mainers are just relieved to have someone who seems like not a typical politician, or if there’s something else in play here. I’m interested to hear what our friends think, because observing this from a neighboring state, Platner, despite putting his foot in it repeatedly, continues to garner support/buzz.
@Gustopher: @DK: I hope you got your donut, Gustopher. Believe it or don’t, I mostly agree with both of you, with footnotes.
Is it true that MAGA voted for Trump out of racism? Oh yeah.
Is it true that calling the MAGA racist does no good? Also true.
Same with fascist.
Is it true that the economy was bad for the election? No, not really. The Biden admin and the Fed had the economy humming pretty nicely by mid 2024.
Is it true that everybody felt the economy was bad? Yes. See my frequent comments about box of rocks electorate. With the economy, perception lags reality. It would require an unrealistically sophisticated and well informed electorate (and punditry) to be otherwise.
We need an accurate understanding of what motivates voters. That understanding should inform the plan, but it is not the plan. The reconnaissance is not the attack plan.
Republicans have done very well. They kissed off the median voter (except rhetorically). They’ve made Blacks and Browns the enemy. Along with LGBTQ. And librarians and schoolteachers. And universities. But they’ve sold a tribal image as “real Americans”. (Sorry @Kathy: , it was them, not me.) And they’re perceived as strong. Dems have accepted the tribal image defined by GOPs as the party of minorities, welfare recipients, sexually heterodox, and other losers. And weak. I’m not suggesting Dems be a mirror image of GOPs, and they shouldn’t lie full time like the GOPs. But they need to project a strong tribal image, and to do that they need to name some names as enemies.
I’m better at seeing the need for a tribal image than at defining one. But somewhere in the fact that we’re the prosperous states and cities defining a better future for all citizens, including the MAGA, in harmony with the world, the creatives should be able to find an identity. Something along the lines of the Grownup Table. Many of the .001% support us, and many more supported Trump because they sensibly support the likely winner. But we can make enemies of Musk, Thiel, Koch, and others who are irredeemable. Same with the clearly racist MAGA. Musk has chosen to make himself a public face of Trump/MAGA, so be it.
(I felt a need for a little rant myself today.)
@Gustopher:
Because Mills represent everything Dem voters hate about the party and Platner is the only alternative.
@Scott:
If the Iranian regiime were to vanish in a puff of smoke, I’d be very happy.
But the administrations seems to have no cherent plan to achieve that, or even to coerce major concessions short of regime-change.
Or to let Congress, the American people, and aliies, in on what the plan and thjustifications are.
As you say, this could all go horribly sideways.
And end up with dead Americans, and even more dead Iranians, to no purpose.
If only the silly ass had left JCPOA in place.
Because then, if Iran had been breaching it, he’d actually have a solid basis for enforcement action, and perhaps the backing to assemble a decisive force, not a performative one.
Saw this at LGM and wanted to post it here because Paul Campos says the same thing I keep saying here.
He goes on to define three Trumps:
Savvy Trump – when he knows he’s lying and thinks his supporters are dumb enough to believe him. (The thing I wish we could communicate to his base more than any other is the utter contempt he holds them in.)
Bullshit Trump – with Prof. Harry Frankfurt’s definition of bullshit, complete indifference as to whether it’s true.
Stupid Trump – “Stupid Trump believes these claims are true, because he’s a profoundly stupid man”. Campos believes Stupid Trump is becoming more common every day.
Campos also repeats the analysis of a friend. I have thought myself the most successful salespeople I’ve met were also the most gullible. They were effective because in the moment they sincerely believed whatever they were saying.
@Kathy: Yep. I am feeling quite relieved to find that there are some folks out here in the C-Suite who still can say “no” to Trump.
I love this quote:
And then, after a threat (from Drunken Pete) to remove them from the Pentagon’s supply chain:
Good News Everyone!
NASA has announced Artemis III won’t go to the Moon. Instead they’ll putter around low Earth orbit to carry ut more tests of the Orion capsule.
I don’t get why they don’t do that with Artemis II first. That one’s stills scheduled to do the free return fly-by of the Moon in April (delayed from March; delayed from February).
If NASA seems less than competent, well, not really. In the second place, NASA was saddled with the SLS rocket, designed by and for politicians, for no clear mission other than to provide money to aerospace companies involved in making it, and paying jobs for their employees.
But in the first place, NASA’s budget hasn’t moved much form well under 1% of the total federal budget. Apollo had like 4-4.5% of it on average, and no competing space station. If NASA had received as little for Apollo as it does today, I guesstimate the first Moon landing would have taken place in the late 70s, assuming the agency didn’t just give up before then.
@Jay L. Gischer: So I just did a bit of looking about, and Anthropic’s number one funder appears to be Lightspeed Ventures. The interesting thing about this is that Lightspeed appears to have little to no connection to either Marc Andreesen or Peter Thiel.
Nor do they appear to have much funding from Facebook, Apple, or Palantir. I’m sure those groups have AI efforts and/or partners. But apparently Anthropic has something the Pentagon wants or they wouldn’t be making these demands.
@Sleeping Dog:
The same usual suspects said the same (wrong) thing about Conor Lamb, ignoring black Pennsylvanians’ repeated warnings about John Fetterman. Most of these people couldn’t tell you one single bad thing that Janet Mills has actually done. Just unfocused, unstrrategic lasting out at nobody in particular because she’s old (like Biden, the most pro-labor president in our lifetimes) and a woman (like Shrillary, and Copmala, whose presidences would have ground this odious patriarchy into dust).
Meanwhile, we must never admit that there is ageism, racism, or sexism on the left, certainly none that causes us good liberals to act irrationally.
At any rate, Platner has publicly and repeatedly sworn up and down on the Holy Bible that he will not be another Sinema and Fetterman. No reason to disbelieve such strong protestations. If he is the nominee, as long as he has a D behind his name and the only other viable option is an R, people should do what 85%+ of black voters always do (but that other factions in our coalition can’t seem to get it through their thick fucking skulls to do) and vote for the Democrat. Since not doing so does not punish the Democrat who loses or teach anybody a lesson or improve anyone’s life or accelerate the revolution or whatever other delusional bullshit du jour our fake allies invent to justify their selfishness.
It’s simply ensures the country never actually moves forward because the next Democrats who win have to waste 90% of their effort getting us back to the baseline from which we could have been demanding more and better progress.
@gVOR10: I just happened on this bit by Tom Sullivan at Digby, News Flash: Americans Are Unhappy, Time to get tough, Democrats with a lot of polling data that supports what I said above.
@JohnSF:
Hard disagree. The best thing for Labour was to lose. I mean, unless the plan is for beatings to continue until morale improves. The people running Labour are profoundly bad at politics. Besides, Labour deserved to lose. Island of Strangers, fuck outta here.
Or, hear me out, the Greens, rather commandingly, have shown, 1. an unabashed, even cringey, openly left-wing party can win, and 2. That the Greens can win, and beat both Reform and Labour. They are going into May with the confidence of winning an election they should have won.
Another take
I’ve been telling people for months that the era of tactical voting is dead. The Democrats and Labour were both given the chance to bring hope and make things better. Both parties told their base to eat shit. I’m sorry, talk more normal. No one is gonna buy that shit sandwich any more. If we’re doomed anyway, might as well go out voting for people we actually believe in and let the chips fall.
Also worth seeing.
And, as opposed to Kier “Glorious” Kier, Zack Polanski.
@Beth:
I beg to differ.
The Greens winning in Gorton/Denham, and Reform comming second, in a former Labour safe seat, show Labour is vualnerable to both Greens and Reform among diffrennt sections of its vote.
The figures indicate that as well as cannibalising the Tory vote, Reform also must have taken a considerable number from Labour.
It will be interesting to see the ward breakdown, and post-election polling for more detail, but the broad picture is quite obvious.
The left analysis is always going to be “Labour must move left!”; just as right analysis of the Tories ever since Thatcher has been “Conservatives must move right!”
That strategy has been followed since 2015; and much good has it done them, in the end.
The obverse strategy was followed by (arguably) Miliband and (definitely) Corbyn; and much good did that do.
I repeat: the national plotting of vote breaks from current polling and the by-election point to a Reform win, if the Greens and Reform booth erode the Labour vote as on current indications. And a “left-strategy” for Labour is not likely to avert that.
Even a full Labour/Green electoral pact would be very unlikely to do anything more than increase the leakage to Reform; it might, just save enough seats to confine Reform to “largest single party” rather than absolute majority.
As for tactical voting being dead: I doubt it.
There was certainly a massive amount in the last general election; just look at the shifts between Lb and LibDem votes depending on who was the better challenger to the Conservatives; as well the direct shifts from Conservatives to Lab, LibDem, and Reform.
There certainly was right here in our council by-election, to stop Reform.
And I’ll eat my hat if some did not put a cross against Green as a calcualted “block Reform” vote.
I might have done so: I consider the Greens frivolous, but Reform actively malicious.
Sounds great.
Does not always work out so well in practice.
@DK:
In general the Dems that don’t want Mills in DC were perfectly happy with her as governor. Now that may seem nonsensical but it reflects the reality of a party’s voters that are looking for a change in who governs them. Collins is elderly, Mill is as well and Angus King is probably a thousand years old. Mills is seen as someone who is going to do business as usual, a typical Dem institutionalists. Their realistic about Platner, but willing to take the chance.
Also these Dems supporting Platner aren’t necessarily, of the left, I’d frame them more as the mirror of the Tea Party. The things that bother us, the casual anti-semitism, racism and sexism is frankly OK with these Dem voters, because they express those attitudes in their own lives.
Outside of a strip of the state, say from the coast to 20 miles inland, stretching from the NH line to Bar Harbor is where you’ll find Dems and most of them won’t resemble the typical Dem found in the Acela corridor or along the Pacific coast. Mostly they look more like Dem voters in the deep south in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, and that even truer for those living away from the coast.
I think it’s a mistake for us to try and put these folks in a box that we’re comfortable with and that for Dems to be successful, we need to let candidates for public office reflect their voters and that means we’re probably going to need to risk another Fetterman in order to get a Senate majority.
When I spent two weeks in Maine in 2000, I spotted a total of two black people the entire time, and I’m pretty sure they were both tourists like me.
When it comes to the debate about anti-Semitism on the left, the case of Plattner has a very horseshoe-theory-quality about it that you do not see with someone like, say, Mamdani.
@Gustopher:
Malarkey. Both times, while 85%-90% of black/queer voters were making an obvious choice, others came up with lame, often sexist excuses to eschew the woman and instead help elect an incompetent, unqualified pedo peddling racist neofascism.
One type of economic anxiety then? Another type the other? Why did these anxieties not cause more blacks, gays, and certain others to also lose their minds electorally? Not totally dumb question. Maybe just dumb-adjacent. The issues are interesting and informative. But the answers still largely moot relative to Trump’s manifest unfitness, which would’ve seen white Europeans vote for Hillary and Harris at a 70-90% clip — their support dipping even Europe’s version of the ‘we don’t feel seen’ right. (Because the choice between Trump and Not Trump was just that obvious.)
Speaking of, Americans giving quarter to each others’ childish, self-centered ‘I helped destroy my country because Dems didn’t make me feel seen’ bunk is one of our flawed curiosities, especially among the demos where Trump ran strongest. Black American culture certainly has demerits like all subcultures (us gays have issues too) but white folk take the cake with this sort of claptrap. Insufferable? Have a mirror. Because “Democrats would’ve won us over if we had just felt seen”* (*while barbarians and the KKK are at the gate) should be entry 1 in the dictionary under insufferable.
As I will not relent on brutally chastising those who inexcusably cosigned Trump’s now deadly campaign of hate, I’d advise scrolling past my insufferability. You go try to persuade them; my head will stay planted unapologetically where it is. I don’t claim to speak for all blacks, gays, or black gays, but I’ve heard enough from these peers to say “we” are devoid of fucks to give re: the US electorate. And no longer give a damn who dislikes the ways we express it, apologies to Rhett Butler.
@Kylopod:
In the 25 years since you spent time in Maine, immigration has significantly increased the population of black people, though it is still a sliver. This growth is mostly from Somali immigration and that community is seen as hardworking and industrious and they’ve gained the respect of Mainers.
But I hazzard the guess that white Mainers see the community as immigrants and not “black,” their attitude toward the African diaspora that are descended from the enslaved is pretty racists. The attitude wasn’t shaped by any direct experience with “those blacks,” but by the prejudice found in popular culture and how blacks have been portrayed in the media, particularly talk radio.
Neil Sedaka 86
RIP
@Sleeping Dog:
I grew up around such people in then-unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia.
If they would dump Roe-killing Sen. Collins (R-Concerned) and instead send to the senate either an elderly business-as-usual lady governor or a racist/sexist/antisemitic Dem, where, simply by existing as a Dem, she or he will help block Trump II’s insane proposals, seat non-Federalist Society judges, and put on the Senate floor bills for affordable housing, affordable healthcare, mass transit, an Election Day holiday, debt forgiveness et al…
…then it’s not a problem atm. Good enough is good enough for now.
You go to war with the army you have in real life. You don’t cede all the imperfect and incomplete progress already made, because the the perfect soldier ChatGPT imagined for you didn’t exist. Then after you win, you complain and demand more. Incomprehensible so many Americans still can’t do the math here. Pushing for more from 40% completed and pending is better than pushing for more from 0% + fascism.
On the less relevant side of the news, fans of Severance may want to brace for another long wait. Reports are that shooting for the third season will begin in mid to late 2026.
And to just brace overall. Other reports say Apple bought the Severance IP. Meaning they can commission other shows set in the same fictional universe.
So, it’s now a franchise.
This may be a good or a terrible thing.
@gVOR10:
May or may not be true, but one should be consistent. There’s no valid explanation on why Democrats should shut up about the white supremacy MAGA ran on in opposition to ~40% of Americans, if the same people hinting that way also insist Dems aren’t raising their voices against MAGA’s transphobic attacks, targeting ~1% of Americans. Questions around both are either “dumb” or valid, together. Because if black people are not even a minor character in most Americans lives, trans people have not even been invited to audition.
The apparent contradiction makes no sense.
Over the brink.
Israel has launched against Iran.
Indications various:
Iran prepping for a strike on Israel as a “show of force” and “propaganda by deed”.
otoh US encouraging an Israeli strike as initiation.
In either case, the shit is on course for the fan.
Latest: US now confirming strikes.
Oh shit.
Trump just released a video message in which he talked about extensive US involvement in the strikes on Iran. Part of it was “to the people of Iran,” with him saying that bombs would be dropping everywhere, so take shelter, and when it’s over, rise up and take over the government.
I’d hope the military plan was prepared more carefully than his speech.
@Eusebio:
Oh ffs.
If the people of Iran do rise, and then get massacred by the Pasdaran, may God forgive him.
Because I surely will not.
Nor will the people of Iran, I suspect.
Trump statement
My god.
Jesus wept.
And various other swearing.
The man is insane.
May the lord watch over and preserve the US Navy.
Because there’s a lot of sailors in harms way right now.
I was listening to the BBC as the Iran stuff was unfolding. Mr Peace Prize, ha. Earlier this evening I was discussing the Iranian Jews I had met 40 years ago forced out of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Bokhari Jews). I have zero sympathy/support to the mullahs of Iran, but likewise have zero desire for the USA to get involved in Iran, other than negating their influence outside Iran (Houtis in Yemen for example).