Mid-Week Tabs
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, March 18, 2026
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10 comments
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.
It never ceases to amaze how any stripe of Christian can advocate seriously for a “Christian” government or prayer in schools without asking what type of Christian government or what type of prayers.
Christian Nationalism (which appears to be Protestant) and the Catholic version of it which appears to be called Catholic integralism share the following ideas in common, it seems:
Ecumenicalism is liberalism.
Liberalism is communism.
Communism is evil.
Evil must be destroyed.
Then again, this happens:
Sailors aboard USS Gerald R. Ford reportedly lost their beds amid fire
@Scott: There’s more:
US carrier Ford to go to port temporarily after fire
Not by any definition of fully operational.
I really like the premise of Bernstein’s #CleverFallacy tag. The same as calling out editorial Sanewashing, it asks some accountability from the press to resist their urge to make something coherent, strategic, or intentional out of the ramblings of our Mad King.
I suspect it must be challenging for people professionally predisposed to trying to make sense of the world’s news to not explain what Trump must have meant. But, they aren’t doing their readers any favors while masking Trump’s deficiencies.
American news consumers are left with either propagandists hellbent to misinform regarding Trump to further their own interests or genuine news analysts feeling compelled to analyze stuff from Trump’s mouth that is little more than babbling.
Neither of these are good for the informed electorate prerequisite to a functioning democracy.
I remember reading “The Power of Positive Thinking” and thinking it had value. Not necessarily a book to organize one’s life around, but it had value.
I mean, no amount of positive thinking, by itself, will fix bugs in the program I’m working on. But me believing that it matters if I fix those bugs can depend a lot on my positive thinking, and that will have an impact on whether those bugs get fixed.
@Joe: The right, proper, and true kind, of course!
@Joe:..prayer in schools…
When anyone tells me that there should be prayer in school I always ask them if I can write the prayer.
When they ask me what my prayer will say I tell them that I will not submit it to them for approval: “I am going to write the prayer and those kids are going to say it.”
Needless to say they do not think any prayer I might compose would be appropriate for their spawn.
@Scott:
Meanwhile, MAGA is busy screaming: “NATO stinks. Eurotrash! We don’t need your lousy bases! You’re on your own! (Just as soon as this war is over, obvs.)”
Toddlers in adult bodies.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Two Christians are arguing about religion (what else). one of them tells the other:
“look, Joe. We are both pious men. We both pray to God. You in your way, and I in His.”