Labor Day Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, September 2, 2024
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25 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor 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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Over the last three days, I made my annual drive from Miami, FL to Douglasville, GA (right outside of Atlanta) via back roads.
Anecdotes are not evidence.
Almost 700 miles. Most of it die hard Trump Country.
Not one Trump sign. Not one.
@EddieInCA: I hope that bodes well for the GA election. Here in SC, I still see plenty of Trump flags & signs.
Bonoism of the day:
And I’d join the movement
If there was one I could believe in
Yeah, I’d break bread and wine
If there was a church I could receive in.
@EddieInCA: On the other side of FL, in south Sarasota County, we live in pretty heavy Trump country. I see Trump signs, but not counting the ones at polling places for the recent primary, very few. Single digits in a several mile drive. And more noteworthy, I’ve only seen one or two pickups parading around with six or eight Trump flags. Does seem very low public enthusiasm.
The recent primary was the final election for the nominally non-partisan school board. The two candidates the Dems recommended won. The DeUseless backed Moms for Liberty (sic) types did poorly around the state.
Just a thought…
The saying: Never interfere with the enemy while he is in the process of making a mistake.
Well, the Trump admin was doing just that, with Arlington. He was spiraling, the team was defending itself against claims, lies were told, and facts were being checked. The Army issued a critical statement. It looked as if this would be a serious stumbling block for Trump.
And then Harris Calls Trump’s Appearance at Arlington a ‘Political Stunt’ that ‘Disrespected Sacred Ground’.
Oof.
Now the focus of media stories of outrage is completely shifted at her: Clearly MAGA-biased Gold Star families are speaking out against Harris, the Biden-Harris admin is being blamed for loss of life in Afghanistan… and OF COURSE somehow everything that Trump did there is COMPELETELY her responsibility and (clutching pearls) HOW DARE SHE SPEAK OUT!!!
It seems to me that after weeks of trying everything that the Magapublicans could throw at her, with nothing sticking, THIS critical comment of hers is their rallying point.
It all could have been avoided by the Harris team saying absolutely nothing on the subject.
As we are a country with the political memory of a tardigrade, it matters not if the facts of the Afghan withdrawal rest on the actions of the Trump administration with the Taliban.
Somehow this is now all her fault.
morons.
James Bouie re Trump cognitive issues:
“Bouie”
“John Oliver”
“youtube”
The Bouie tweet is subtitled video, runs about 2 minutes. Concise and to the point. Based on the completely bonkers stuff Trump said to Moms for Liberty re trans kids.
@Liberal Capitalist:
Oh c’mon please! They were already doing that, haven’t you seen that “last person in the room” crap? What Gold Star families – the two MAGA families that were already attacking Biden and Harris and have been on Biden’s case for three years now already?
How long ago was it J D Vance told Harris to “go to hell?” Right after this broke, no?
@BugManDan: Same here. But this county has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1952. In 1948, it voted for local guy Strom Thurmond.
You can also play the Bouie video on the LGM site:
“LGM“
@Liberal Capitalist: Afghanistan was always going to be a line of attack. If it comes up in the debate IMO Harris has to talk about Trump releasing 5,000
Taliban terrorists, push the you don’t negotiate with terrorists narrative. Just hammer home the fact that as president Trump released terrorists. IOW, imply that it was Trump’s fault.
@EddieInCA:
@gVOR08:
Interesting. I’ve had the sense that Trump has become a sort of Toxic Elvis, crooning the same old tunes to the same old audience, but increasingly boring even the hardcore MAGAts. We don’t need a dramatic collapse of the cult, we just need a lessening of enthusiasm combined with no real GOTV, against rising enthusiasm and a strong GOTV. There’s a difference between what you tell a pollster, and what you decide to do on a rainy or snowy November day.
Since I found complete Mythbusters episodes some time back in late June, I’ve pretty much been watching only that every day. Exceptions were for finishing The Acolyte, and every Wednesday a new ep of Futurama, and some Youtube content I like.
There are, after all, over 200 eps of Mythbusters. It takes time. Not counting one or two seasons where Discovery tried to continue the show with different hosts, or the one sole season of Mythbusters Jr., featuring several kids testing myths with Adam Savage.
TL;DR, I’ve been having a great time watching TV these past two months.
@BugManDan: Here, outside Nashville, I’ve seen one Trump sign. Four years ago they were everywhere.
@EddieInCA:
A couple of weeks ago, I helped my brother move to The Villages (shudder), we both noted that in the area around, but outside The Villages, there were very few felon Trump signs, we weren’t sure what to make of that.
In the Villages, lawn signs are prohibited, and I didn’t see any golf carts festooned with Felon trump devotionals, only one cart with a single sticker. Again, not sure what that means.
@SC_Birdflyte: Not sure where you are, but it seems there are a lot in the upstste and fewer the closer to the coast.
I have expressed low opinions of political pundits. There seems to be a career arc of being hired for doing something brilliant and insightful, and keeping that up for a time (OK, for conservatives, having risen to prominence in the RW media and being able to write an English declarative sentence), but nobody can be brilliant on deadline three columns a week, so they become hacks and fall back to marketing themselves to some audience segment.
It may not last, bit right now Jamelle Bouie at NYT is a national treasure. The video clip of him in this LGM post talking about Trump’s state of mind should be required viewing. Paul Campos summarizes:
And adds,
I have been forced to conclude WAPO, NYT, etc. see themselves as the voice of our ruling elite. Much of that elite see themselves as “socially liberal, but fiscally conservative”, which is to say they’re closet Republicans. Yeah, maybe Trump will burn the country to the waterline, but what about my taxes?
@gVOR08: For Matt Bernius, After the big site change a year or more ago, I had problems revolving around my WordPress login and had to change both my email and my handle here to comment. I see above I accidentally slipped to the old handle, and the system accepted it. Not a complaint, just a point of amusement. Appreciate your work on the site. Perhaps it opened up an ancient database.
@EddieInCA:
Had a similar experience driving through very red areas of rural NY. I was honestly surprised at the lack of Trump signs relative to a few years ago.
@gVOR10:
The WordPress database is strange and works in mysterious ways. Perhaps some of those changes are due to the backend optimization work I have been doing.
I joke with James that the site has become my middle-age car restoration/tinkering project.
I don’t put too much significance into the lack of Trump signs and flags, because I suspect it has more to do with people being tired of fighting with friends and family rather than any change of enthusiasm or belief.
I’m watching some of the paralympics (it is on USA network). To see people missing multiple limbs, who have quadriplegia, or other issues competing in swimming and track and field is inspiring. Enough to make me forget about politics for a few hours.
@Lucysfootball: Gabriel Araujo is absolutely unbelievable to watch. That dude has to have a core on par with steel.
Here’s the latest entry in the long and frustrating race for single stage to orbit: Radian One.
I’d call the piece maddeningly uninformative, as it doesn’t say how the Radian would accelerate to approx. Mach 22-23, about ten times faster than the late Concord. I won’t, only because Radian’s website doesn’t say, either. It says a lot of what they can do once in orbit, not how they can get to orbit.
There’s mention of a rocket sled on a rack, which would accelerate the ship to Mach 0.7. Nice, though that’s a really high speed for takeoff. But not a word of what happens afterwards. The computer renderings and animation do not show jet engines, which feature in most spaceplane type single stage to orbit types.
The sled has its own engines, and feeds fuel and oxidizer to the Radian as well. That’s clever, as the ship would then take off with completely full tanks. I just don’t see how they will accelerate to the required orbital speed.
The sled, especially feeding the craft’s engines, would be an awesome way for commercial planes to take off, especially supersonic ones. They’d still use up large amounts of fuel for takeoff, but they wouldn’t need to carry it.
IMO, we eon’t get single stage to orbit until we can safely use a more powerful energy source, something like a nuclear reactor. Of course, that comes with problems of its own. A fission reactor would be too heavy and dangerous, and a fusion reactor doesn’t even exist.
How about this instead: next time Kirk visits the past, grab him and ask him for a recipe to make antimatter.
@Matt Bernius: Any ideas/hope for removing my auto-moderation issues?
If not should I change usernames or have you nuke my username on the backend and re-start it?
I’m so glad I don’t care much for music, and less so for live music. I’d give myself an aneurysm or six trying to get tickets.
I think I’ve seen exactly three musical performances live. Joan Manuel Serrat sometime in the 80s, The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra play Vivaldi’s 4 seasons also in the 80s. And Olivia Newton John at the Flamingo in Vegas in 2014. I’ve no idea what I paid for any of these. I have the ticket stub for the last one, and I recall I bought it at Tix4tonight*, which sells at a discount. I doubt it was as much as $60.
All venues have some capacity limit. They can sell only so may tickets, and no more. I get that selling tickets online will exhaust the supply very quickly, regardless of then they are first offered. These big headline tours offer a small number of dates, some even just one in some locations. Ergo they are very expensive, and the Ticketmaster monopoly makes it that much worse. it’s like tickets for live music are sold exclusively in the 8th circle of Hell, and only on bad days.
Also, I do’t even know what Oasis is. Some kind of band, obviously, and I vaguely recall having heard about it. I doubt I know any of their songs or would recognize one.
*It’s a Vegas thing. I think it has been renamed since then.