NYE Tabs
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, December 31, 2024
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5 comments
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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Wait. I thought Trump’s solution to the Ukraine conflict was to “give Russia what it wants.”
His words.
Dems should counter the Selzer lawsuit by filing ones against pollsters they don’t like. Biden could sue Trafalgar for showing him losing several states he went on to win in 2020, and Gretchen Whitmer could sue them for showing her losing the 2022 gubernatorial race, which she went on to win by double digits, in almost as large an error as the Selzer one in 2024.
@CSK: As with Trump’s policy positions, or the Rock of Ages eternal tenets of conservatism, probably no one knows what Russia wants today. Not even Russia.
Recently read Kurt Weyland’s Democracy’s Resilience to Populism’s Threat. Don’t know that I particularly recommend it, his writing style is hugely redundant and I suspect his thesis is overly specific. But we tend to regard Trump as sui generis and the book makes it clear he’s just annother example of a fairly common type. And yes, press suppression by legal and “paralegal”means is a constant. As is striving to control the Courts, something Trump was largely gifted with by Lenny Leo. Although their loyalty to Trump may extend only so far as it coincides with the interests of the money behind Leo.
Weyland published a few months before Trump’s re-election, but explicitly anticipated it as likely. He’s quite confident Trump won’t be able to severely damage our relatively robust democratic institutions. But I felt his book omitted two critical factors. First, he never mentions the money behind wannabe authoritarian dictators. Second, he recognizes nothing like my refrain of “it ain’t just Trump”. Most of his examples came out of the back benches or obscurity. He identifies Berlusconi as the closest analog to Trump. And in three non-consecutive terms, Berlusconi left Italian democracy mostly intact. As far as I’m aware, Berlusconi wasn’t riding a wave of anything like our decades of Movement Conservatism. Weyland does allow that each populist tin pot eases the way for the next.
You know, Krugman is saying what I’ve been saying for at least 10 years now. The primary use case for cryptocurrency is crime.
Of course, he has a bunch of interesting facts and charts that I don’t have. So there’s that. That business about how many $100 bills are in circulation is fascinating.
Also, it’s possible he’s been saying this for a long time, as well. Anyway, I’m deeply disappointed in Marc Andreeson, who seems like he’s a guy who ought to know better.