Monday’s Forum

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. EddieinCA says:

    Had the pleasure of shooting the shit at a pub with local Londoners over several hours and several pints. A few takeaways.

    A. The average Londoner hates Donald Trump because of how he embarrasses America. Their words not mine.

    B. According to my drinking buddies, they have the same systemic racism here in the UK but it’s not just aimed at black people. Muslims and Asians are often the worst targets.

    C. Most believe Brexit was a mistake even though some of the people I was with voted “leave”. Each of them who voted “leave” had the belief it would never pass. Each of them is horrified by their note, this many years later. I’d love JohnSF or Lounsbury to weigh in.

    It was a blast.

    7
  2. Scott says:
  3. DK says:

    @Scott: Where’s Spring at? Still “winter” weather here in Los Angeles aka a wet Massachusetts fall, minus the beautiful orange-red-brown foliage canopy.

    1
  4. Scott says:

    @DK: We’re in the middle of a cold spell here in San Antonio (40-50s). But it will be in the 70s tomorrow and 80s later in the week. Got the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant seedlings all ready to plant.

    1
  5. CSK says:

    @EddieinCA:

    Well, I can’t stand Donald Trump, either, and he embarrasses the hell out of me, so Londoners and I share that.

    So-called “Paki-bashing” has gone on in the U.K. for generations. Some yobs find an Asian man alone and beat the hell out of him.

    I love the U.K., but no place is perfect.

    3
  6. MarkedMan says:

    I assume most people here are aware of the slow motion train wreck of an interview that Bethany Mandel gave last week, in which she tried and epically failed to define “woke”, which was literally the subject of the book she was promoting. It’s fair to say that the left jumped all over her and put it out as a glaring illustration of the vacuity of the right. I thought it was interesting, but I was less harsh in my judgement. Normally I’m pretty good at public speaking, but upon occasion I’ve gotten stuck when the mic was on, and been awkward in explaining things that I would have had no trouble with minutes before I stood up in front of everyone. So I actually empathized with her dawning realization that this was going to go viral. But two further pieces lend a lot of clarity to her positions and capabilities.

    The first was this Newsweek piece where she explained what happened in a very relatable way. But as I read it, I couldn’t get over how much it was coming from, well, a woke perspective. Essentially, “I had very specific family situations and have made life choices that were outside the mainstream. Can’t you take that into account before judging me?” This from a woman who is literally promoting her book decrying wokeness.

    The second is this Slate interview that took place a few months before. If anything, it’s worse. First, her definition of “woke” even then was vacuous:

    So, in terms of children, it’s the idea of turning them—I think my best example is the board book Antiracist Baby, and it is … hold on. I have it. I have the text somewhere. The idea that you cannot be neutral, that this is a fundamental reshaping of our society. In the lens of anti-racism, in the lens of sexuality, that is not what we’ve traditionally thought. It’s the idea that we’re trying to turn our kids into modern warriors in these political battles about CRT and about sexuality and climate change and all of these things.

    It’s hard to even understand her point there. More importantly, as the interview progresses it becomes apparent she is an “intellectual” who seems to have spent her whole career in the comforting bubble bath of Fox News interviews. She very carefully makes the case that children’s books shouldn’t be enrolling them into the culture wars at an early age, and gives examples of inclusive books that she feels does that. Okay. Fair point for debate. But then she gives examples of right wing children’s books that are supposedly avoiding the culture wars. She seems totally unprepared to be challenged on this when it turns out the interview is familiar with one of the books.

    Interviewer: On one of the pages from Tuttle Twins’ Education Vacation, there’s a portrayal of public school as a conveyor belt where kids are being literally factory-brainwashed. Is that a good lesson to teach kids? How do you balance that with wanting to be sensitive toward kids with trauma?

    Mandel: I don’t think that that’s the message of Education Vacation. It’s not how my kids saw it, and it’s not how we explained it…

    Interviewer: The kids are gagged. There’s a machine vacuuming a kid’s mind out of their head.

    I have a lot less sympathy for her now.

    12
  7. Stormy Dragon says:

    Related to the copyright discussion yesterday, the Italian government is now claiming you need their authorization and pay them if you want to use the Vitruvian Man image:

    Italy Decides That Leonardo da Vinci’s 500 Year Old Works Are Not In The Public Domain

    1
  8. Stormy Dragon says:

    @MarkedMan:

    One thing to note about the Newsweek article is that after all her explaining how she can totally define woke and it was just a mishap that stopped her from doing so during the interview and it’s all woke people’s fault she didn’t define woke, she still never actually defines woke.

    Because she can’t: not because she doesn’t have a definition of woke, but if she said what her definition of woke was, it would be saying the quiet part out loud.

    6
  9. CSK says:

    After almost 11 years of blabbing away on OTB, it’s time I confessed. I’m the Susan Kelly in this article from the Guardian. The only thing David Smith got wrong about me was my age. I’m much younger. 😀

    http://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/mar/20/boston-strangler-film-keira-knightley-journalists/

    11
  10. Kingdaddy says:

    TruthSocial is the subject of another investigation into Trump. Ignoring financial regulations, sketchy funding from Putin-connected sources — is anyone surprised? Trump is truly a spiritual twin to Henry Hill, the mobster who could never do anything straight, even when the opportunity to not be crooked was the better one.

    https://www.thebulwark.com/the-trump-investigation-you-probably-havent-heard-about/

    4
  11. steve says:

    Those were two good pieces. Not only could she not define woke it was pretty funny that when claimed certain kinds of books didnt exist the interviewer was able to point out they did. Plus she was totally unable to see that the books she liked were engaged in the culture war, which she claims to oppose.

    Steve

    5
  12. DrDaveT says:

    @steve:

    Plus she was totally unable to see that the books she liked were engaged in the culture war, which she claims to oppose.

    No no, you don’t get it! Things that agree with me are neutral; things that don’t are biased. Why is that so hard to understand?

    9
  13. gVOR08 says:

    @Stormy Dragon:

    but if she said what her definition of woke was, it would be saying the quiet part out loud.

    Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution makes a big deal out of saying he’s a Straussian. Commenters say he never says what that means, which is consistent with being Straussian. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy says of Leo Strauss,

    He interpreted these (Plato and Socrates) as advancing an ‘*esoteric’ philosophy, hidden between the lines and concealed from all except initiates, which meant primarily himself and his students.

    A lot of conservatives seem to obfuscate their arguments. They tend to bury them in a torrent of words, which allows them to say it’s not that they’re not clear, it’s that you’re just too simple to understand my brilliant, esoteric Straussian style. Much of that is really what you said, not wanting to say the quiet parts out loud. But I think a lot of it goes beyond that. I believe writing style reflects thinking. Many conservative writers simply haven’t clearly thought things through. But I think often they realize that if they state their positions in clear English they just don’t make any sense. I think the lady in question started out to give a short definition of “woke” then locked up when she realized it would sound like a good thing.

    4
  14. DrDaveT says:

    @MarkedMan:

    The idea that you cannot be neutral, that this is a fundamental reshaping of our society. In the lens of anti-racism, in the lens of sexuality, that is not what we’ve traditionally thought.

    And we were wrong. Demonstrably. That’s the whole point.

    With those who believe that children arrive into the culture neutrally, I generally ask why they think it is that most adherents of a given religion grew up in that religion. If they keep digging, we get to the question of whether it’s easier to absorb your parents’ (perhaps tacit, perhaps even implicit) racism or to buy into their Magic Sky Daddy beliefs…

  15. MarkedMan says:

    @CSK: Wow! Congrats! Not just a Hollywood movie but one starring Carrie Coons!

    3
  16. MarkedMan says:

    @DrDaveT: You’re absolutely right, in principle. But honestly I couldn’t tell you if that applies to what she said. As Issac Asimov said in Foundation:

    The analysis was the most difficult of the three by all odds. When Holk, after two days of steady work, succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications – in short, all the goo and dribble – he found he had nothing left. Everything cancelled out.

    Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn’t say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed.

    4
  17. CSK says:

    @MarkedMan:

    I don’t know how Keira Knightley is going to portray a tough-gal reporter from Southie.

    1
  18. Kylopod says:

    @MarkedMan:

    She very carefully makes the case that children’s books shouldn’t be enrolling them into the culture wars at an early age

    When have children’s books not done that? Republicans were crying about the supposed cancellation of Dr. Seuss. Do they not remember The Lorax? That’s practically the epitome of a children’s book pushing a “woke” message. Whenever I’ve gone back to some of the books I read or had read to me as a kid, I’ve noticed that a good number of them use talking animals as an implicit way of teaching children about the follies of racism or prejudice.

    Forget for the moment trying to define “woke.” The question I’d like to ask conservatives like Mandel is, how do you define when a book (or film, play, game, etc.) is “getting political”? I would say that something is political as long as there are enough people in visible society who reject the message. We don’t usually think of the Indiana Jones films as political when they feature Nazis as the villains, even though the Nazis certainly were (and still are) a political movement, and there are contexts where publicly opposing them has been seen as a political act. It’s just that we’ve reached an overwhelming consensus in society that Nazis were the bad guys, so the message is no longer controversial among most people. (Maybe this is beginning to change as of late, but even people with Nazi-like or Nazi-adjacent views usually deny being Nazis; even if they’re lying, the fact that they feel compelled to lie about it illustrates how taboo it is.)

    In the linked Slate article, she complains about children’s books that supposedly criticize the Founding Fathers. But a book presenting the Founding Fathers as infallible god-heroes would certainly be making a political statement. It’s just the type of statement that conservatives are likelier to approve of. Therefore they don’t see it as making a statement at all. It’s only making a statement when they don’t like the statement.

    4
  19. Moosebreath says:

    @Stormy Dragon:

    I guess they decided that Leonardo using it was not an infringement on Vitruvius’s original descriptions from 1500+ years before.

    3
  20. Sleeping Dog says:

    @CSK:

    so, the curtain opens… 🙂

    2
  21. Jen says:

    @CSK: Very cool! And in Ozark’s favorite publication, no less! (It is a little-known tendency of some journalists to randomly add decades to the ages of interviewees…many people have said this.)

    2
  22. CSK says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    Yes! Yes! It’s really me! 😀

    @Jen:

    Oh, indubitably.

    2
  23. MarkedMan says:

    @CSK: Acting? 😉

    2
  24. CSK says:

    @MarkedMan:

    A producer once told me that movie parts were cast not with actors who could portray the character well, but who was big box office.

    1
  25. MarkedMan says:

    @CSK: Well, Keira Knightly should bring in the box office and Coons will bring the acting chops

    1
  26. Sleeping Dog says:

    @MarkedMan:

    If the director has a sense of humor, he’ll have Knightly wear a green dress at some point in the film. That’d be an Easter egg to drive her fans crazy.

  27. Kathy says:

    Something really odd happened yesterday while I was cooking. I got a cramp on my right hand, specifically the index finger.

    It has happened before, but this time was extreme. The finger went rigid, and it moved farther to the left, towards the thumb, thhn it had any business being. And it really hurt.

    The worse part was I had some beef patties cooking, and I couldn’t grasp the spatula to flip them over. I found out also how hard it is to do something so simple with the non-dominant hand. Maybe I should practice using that hand more from time to time. Just in case.

    Once it passed, I returned to the dish that had caused the cramp, and managed to almost cramp my right hand again. I learned not to stir upward as well as sideways when I’ve a lot of solid ingredients in too little liquid.

    For the record, it was a stew with bell pepper, onions, garlic, soybean sprouts, celery, lima beans, black beans, sweet corn, and lentils.

    The other dish was plain beef patties topped with balsamic onions (overcooked red onions with balsamic vinegar and ketchup).

  28. Jay L Gischer says:

    @Kathy: Well, you probably already know this, but I would recommend increasing the amount of potassium you ingest. Bananas are good for this purpose.

  29. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    Late in the sequence, but still before I got back home and too late to respond, Jax asked:

    @Just nutha ignint: Soooo….you would vote for Trump just for the insanity of him presidenting from prison? Just to clarify.

    In the interest of clarity, no, even the insanity of Trump presidenting from ClubFed would probably not be enough to trigger a need on my part to register to vote again. But I’m the guy who has “clock will run out” on the office pool for indicting Trump and yesterday noted that Trump getting convicted of bribing Stormy Daniels was closer to Clinton getting prison sex from the kneehole of the resolute desk than to convicting Al Capone of tax evasion. But I have no doubt that there are RWNJs who would and will vote for Trump if the opportunity presents because he gets convicted and for the yucks (or should it be lulz?) and insanity of it all. You probably live down the road a piece from them, and I know for sure that some of them are my neighbors.

    The sad part for me to your query is that it doesn’t make a fucksworth of difference for the vast majority of us which octagenarian gets elected in 2024. Even sadder it that it probably also doesn’t make a fucksworth of difference for most the people who are suffering/afraid/unhoused/underemployed/in real and physical danger because of who they are relative to where they live/whatever else you want to add either.

    The government’s broken. In case some of us haven’t been paying attention. And I still wonder if we shouldn’t have let Huey and Angela burn the sucka to the ground when we had the chance.

    4
  30. CSK says:

    The trial for E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit against Trump for defamation was supposed to take place this coming April 10. It has been indefinitely postponed.

    I assume the judge is waiting to see what happens with Alvin Bragg.

  31. @Kylopod: Indeed. His book “The Sneetches” is expressly anti-racist. Many of his books have clear political messages.

    how do you define when a book (or film, play, game, etc.) is “getting political”?

    Any story that has any kind of point of view whatsoever is definitionally political. Indeed, finding a truly apolitical story would be hard to do.

    3
  32. @CSK: Very cool!

  33. MarkedMan says:

    @CSK: Hmmm. Is that a thing? Can you get out of a civil trial by getting indicted? Or is there a settlement coming?

  34. Kathy says:

    @Jay L Gischer:

    I eat between 4 and 5 bananas each week.

    they helped with frequent thigh cramps.

    1
  35. CSK says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:
    Thank you very much. I’m renowned for being cool. 😉

    @MarkedMan:
    I don’t think you can get out of it. I think a criminal trial might take precedence over a civil one, which is why the judge might want a delay.

  36. CSK says:

    @Kathy:

    Potatoes and orange juice are good sources of potassium as well.

  37. JohnSF says:

    @EddieinCA:
    @CSK:
    – The sheer cringe factor in distaste for Trump is never to be overlooked. Even Johnson has said some remarkably uncomplimentary things about him. It’s a bit like American wrestling: you have to wilfully suspend disbelief to stomach him, IMO. To most Brits he comes across as both phony and vulgar.

    – The UK can, regrettably, be as racist as anywhere else. Though “Paki-bashing” is less of the thing these day than it was in the heyday of the “skinheads” in the 1970’s/early 80’s. Oddly enough, the “skins” tended to be less antagonistic to West Indians, and were quite often keen on ska, reggae and soul music. There’s perhaps a bit of a class aspect to it, as well. Though of course some “skins” were outright neo-nazis, and racist towards any and all.
    The difference between US and UK/European racisms is IMO the US legacy of slavery and post slavery “Jim Crow” segregation and systematic, socially enforced, discrimination.

    – Leavers vary. About 10 to 20% IMO were just casting a protest vote. A lot of these and a smaller number of genuine brexiters now “bregret”. Probably a 15 to 25% of the total Leave vote, judging from polls.
    Problem is, the unrepentant leave voters have a geographic distribution that makes it very difficult for Labour to win, if they vote solidly Conservative, and the polls narrow somewhat. As is likely.
    And they have a similar, inverse, electoral attraction for Tories. As well as being disproportionately represented in the Conservative Party membership.
    So reconciliation with the EU is going to be a slow business, I suspect.

    1
  38. Mister Bluster says:

    Six Oath Keepers convicted in connection with January 6 US Capitol riot

    Six people affiliated with the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia, were convicted Monday of various charges related to the January 6, 2021, US Capitol insurrection.
    Four of the defendants were found guilty on all of the charges they faced, including conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent a member of congress from doing their duty, destruction of government property and civil disorder.
    The high-level convictions for four defendants is another significant win for the Justice Department, which has worked for years to bring consequences against people who they say plotted for violence at the Capitol that day – the largest criminal investigation in the department’s history – and comes as some conservatives continue to promote the false narrative the riots were peaceful.
    Two defendants were convicted of a lesser charge of entering and remaining on restricted grounds but acquitted of the most serious charges alleging the group conspired to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
    The jury remains deadlocked on two counts for those two defendants and will continue to deliberate.

    Twice today I have heard reported on the radio that “the Proud Boys aren’t organized enough to order a McDonald’s Meal”.
    Since I wasn’t avidly listening when this came on the air and I can’t find it on a Google search I haven’t been able to determine who said this. I think it was a defense lawyer for the PB in an opening statement in one of the Proud Boys trials.
    In any event I spend enough time in McDonald’s drinking senior coffee and using the free wifi that I have heard many customers take forever ordering their Big Macs and fries along with the kids meals and whichever toy comes with it to think that the Proud Boys lawyers could come up with a better defense than one that reflects the typical condition of patrons of Mickey D’s.

    2
  39. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Kathy: You might want to consider getting a consult on that matter. Cramps in one’s hands are sometimes indicative of conditions other than potassium deficiency. Same with leg cramps involving non-hamstring muscles.

  40. Kylopod says:

    @Mister Bluster:

    Six Oath Keepers convicted in connection with January 6 US Capitol riot

    Pawn mate!

    1
  41. steve says:

    I read somewhere that ice cream is a good source of potassium. Not sure where I read that but would like to believe it.

    Steve

    1
  42. Michael Reynolds says:

    @CSK:
    I knew your secret identity. @wr and @EddieinCA too. And I guess everyone knows that Lounsbury is secretly the Earl of Grantham, while @Ozark is actually the missing Langmore from the TV show, Ozark, and @JKB is Eric Trump’s pool boy.

    2
  43. CSK says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    I know you did. I too know who Eddie and wr are. Their secrets are safe with me.

  44. MarkedMan says:

    @CSK: Wait! They aren’t Eddie and wr?! But if they’re not, who is!?

    (It’s been a long day…)

  45. Gustopher says:

    @CSK: I think Eddie has been clear enough about what he has worked on and what he did that anyone could figure out his secret identity if they wanted to. (I haven’t bothered, so maybe I missed some misdirection or something)

    3
  46. Gustopher says:

    @Kathy, @Just nutha ignint cracker: Given the number of people who don’t get enough potassium who don’t have these cramps, I’d second this suggestion to get it checked out, at least if it keeps happening.

    My guess is always “impinged nerve caused by bad posture from sitting at a desk.”

  47. Jax says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker: Thanks for the response. I was afraid I had misjudged you….it sounded like you’d vote for Trump for the lulz, not because you’ve given up all hope. I too, don’t have much hope, and can’t vote due to a slightly shady (but non-violent) past.

    Although….apparently Wyoming wants to give me my gun rights back. I don’t see anything in that bill about voting, I mean, WTF?!

  48. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Jax: You may want to consider taking what’s offered without evaluating their motives. Jus’ sayin’. 😉

    ETA: I sometimes I wish I was the guy who votes to throw a wrench into the system, but I’ve never been that guy (…so far…).

  49. de stijl says:

    I have no idea if tomorrow is going to go off the rails. If pro-Trump rallies will veer into violent coup attempts. I sincerely hope it won’t.

    In the lead up to January 6 I knew it was going to go violently bad. Absolutely knew. Anyone who was paying attention knew this was the crux of an attempted coup. It had been highlighted and hyped for weeks. This was direct action to seize power. Thankfully, they were a bunch of ineffectual putzes.

    We dodged a bullet. A more focused coup attempt could have toppled everything. Our enemies will not always be that stupid. Prepare for the next attempt.