Saturday’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. Flat Earth Luddite says:

    The work and effort our hosts put in to making this a welcoming place is always appreciated but seldom mentioned by Luddite. The overall tone and nature of the group here is so rare on the interwebs … to me, it feels like a bunch of friends and neighbors sitting at the coffee shop on a Saturday morning.

    This has been maudlin enough to be embarrassing when I come back in a bit. 0330 thoughts and all that. Must be time for meds.

    So let the shenanigans begin!

    19
  2. Kingdaddy says:

    The fashion editor’s take on the alleged deeper meaning of the Carter funeral is one of the most stupid things I’ve read in The New York Times. And that’s saying something. So too is the fact that I got a push notification urging I read this gibberish.

    Here’s the key moment of sanewashing, for which Vanessa Friedman got paid to write:

    It made as clear a statement about transition of power and continuity as anything said during the actual certification of the election by the Senate earlier in the week (or anything Mr. Trump and Mr. Obama appeared to be chuckling about privately). And it suggested that Mr. Trump was fully cognizant of what it meant to look as if he were a traditional part of the very, very exclusive club that is the presidency, even as he attempts to transform it.

    2
  3. Not the IT Dept. says:

    The GOP has worked out their line on the California fires:

    Rep. Warren Davidson on California federal disaster relief: “If they want the money, then there should be consequences where they have to change their policies [policies that have nothing to do with what actually caused or worsened the fires]… CA wants the money without changing the policies that are making the problem worse & I don’t see how Rs could possibly support that.”

    Source: https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lffjglau4k2x

    3
  4. Scott says:

    @Not the IT Dept.: Yes, let’s go down that road (first explored in Hurricane Sandy). Of course, when the hurricanes smash Florida, Louisiana, and Texas coasts and the outbreak of tornadoes this spring throughout the plains, those concepts will all be forgotten.

    6
  5. Not the IT Dept. says:

    @Scott:

    No, no, you’re not getting it. The policies Davidson is referring to concern California’s sanctuary law and other efforts to protect its citizens from Trumpian attack. Nothing to do with fires. See, none of the red states have sanctuary laws so it will be okay to provide funding for them.

    3
  6. becca says:

    Well, yesterday was a soft and snowy morning and today is hard ice under a sharp and glaring winter sun. Yuck. Too dangerous to go walking with several widowmaker limbs ready to crash down to earth with the slightest breeze. I gave Sadie shredded cheese in her kibble to make up for our lack of motivation. She’s sulking. Every once in a while she heaves a sigh as she lays next to me, just to remind me she is not content at all with the situation. She just now low-whined at me. What a drama queen.
    Would like to reiterate Luddite in thanks to our hosts here. I have been a regular here for well over a decade. Balloon Juice and LGM fill out my trinity of Good Places. Smart people with good hearts and a sense of humor. What the world needs more of *.
    * Still not used to it being ok to end a sentence with a preposition.

    8
  7. Mike says:

    @Not the IT Dept.: When I read “if California wants the money,” – two thoughts. I think how large CA’s economy is and how much it contributes to the US treasury each year, and, while fires are still burning citizens out of their homes, some have to play politics – just can’t help it. Just sad and unnecessary.

    9
  8. Rob1 says:

    @Not the IT Dept.: How could we expect this to be any different from a mean-spirited cabel, hell bent on punishment, vindication, and destruction. The barbarians have breached our walls.

    4
  9. Rob1 says:

    @becca:

    * Still not used to it being ok to end a sentence with a preposition

    Is it something we can be okay with? I thought it was something our writing should be devoid of.

    3
  10. CSK says:

    Sam Moore, 89, of “Soul Man” fame, has died. RIP.

    3
  11. becca says:

    @Rob1: well, it renders one of my favorite jokes ineffective..

    West Virginian goes to Harvard. Stops a fellow on campus and asks “Where’s the library at?”. The fellow responds “At Hahvahd, we do not end sentences with prepositions!”.
    West Virginian replies “Okay. Where’s the library at, asshole?”

    As a native West by god Virginian, I can tell you this joke kills in Charleston.

    11
  12. Beth says:

    @Not the IT Dept.:

    Yes and, if you teach places like CA and NY that you will only get disaster relief if you tow the GOP line you won’t get compliance, you’ll get revenge and a lot of pissed off people. If disaster relief isn’t bi-partisan you’ll eventually windup with a poorer Red state’s money getting blocked with enough GOP reps crowing about saving money and those people will be pissed.

    The thought occurs to me, what happens when poor and lower middle class Whites get the full weight of Jim Crow governance dropped on them. They were always a target of it, but it seems that they’ve been sheltered from the worst effects of it for the last 50 years.

    4
  13. Flat Earth Luddite says:

    @becca:
    @Rob1:

    Still not used to it being ok to end a sentence with a preposition.

    Heretics shall be punished!**

    ** And the Oxford period rules!!!!!!

    5
  14. Joe says:

    @becca:Fluffy snow on the ground here and a bright blue sky overhead. Glad I skipped the trail run this morning, but a lovely walk around the mostly deserted park where Lucy (pictured) got to run around mostly off leash.

    2
  15. CSK says:

    @Joe:

    My dog was named Lucy. She was a chocolate Lab cross.

    2
  16. just nutha says:

    @Beth: I’m reminded of the wisdom of Davis X Machina and his adage about the guy who’s content living in a box on the riverbank being content as long as the nKKKLAANNGGG downstream doesn’t have a box.

    Well, something to that effect, anyway.

    3
  17. MarkedMan says:

    @Beth:

    The thought occurs to me, what happens when poor and lower middle class Whites get the full weight of Jim Crow governance dropped on them.

    I mean, we know what that looks like. Alabama, Mississippi to name just two living examples.

    Note that in those states for at least a couple of centuries, there was no collective, “Oh my gosh, we got what we asked for and those liberals told us it would be a disaster, and it was! They were so right and we will change our voting habits accordingly!” Instead they simply looked for their elected leaders to tell them which minority group they should sh*t on.

    8
  18. MarkedMan says:

    @Rob1: Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

  19. Gustopher says:

    @just nutha: that, Cleek’s Law, Wilhout’s Law and Leopards Eating People’s Faces pretty much sum up the world.

    Oh, and “shitty people with shitty values” by our beloved and late Teve.

    Fun article about Wilhout’s Law:
    https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wilhoit.html

    3
  20. gVOR10 says:

    Over at Balloon Juice Mistermix quotes advice from Brian Beutler I think we should all take to heart.

    Liberals today seem more inclined than in 2017-2020 to roll their eyes or mutter at his empty provocations, and move on. This is as much a mental-health exercise as a strategic ploy. It’s arguably a wiser approach to opposition than indiscriminate resistance, though of course it means we’ll err in certain edge cases—over-reacting to some things, under-reacting to others.

    But a good way to resolve the debate might be to establish an informal rule: responding to Trump’s provocations is always acceptable if the effect is to belittle him; to make him look like a boob or a chump or a phony. Not “ahhh! this is dangerous!” but “whatever, clown!” Not “what about our norms!” but “try me.” Etc, etc.

    The response to the wall shouldn’t have been, “That’s terrible.” but, “That’s stupid.” Instead of all the articles we’re seeing about Greenland, Canada, Panama and their deep history with the U. S. and estimates of their price and speculation as to whether Trump really means it and how he might do it the reaction should be more like, “Whatever, clown. Can you point out even Canada on a map?”

    7
  21. Beth says:

    @MarkedMan:

    I mean, we know what that looks like. Alabama, Mississippi to name just two living examples.

    Yes, and that’s assuming things don’t get worse in those places. Or maybe worse quickly.

    First, let’s take into account what you said, which is, I think, accurate. Then add in this:

    I’m reminded of the wisdom of Davis X Machina and his adage about the guy who’s content living in a box on the riverbank being content as long as the nKKKLAANNGGG downstream doesn’t have a box.

    @just nutha:

    Which I think are separate, but complimentary ideas, that is also accurate.

    My argument, and this is mostly just a thought experiment. I’m going to use Left and Right instead of Blue and Red because I think that might be more accurate. If we imagine that starting with the New Deal, the broadly speaking Left has attempted to materially make everyone’s lives better. The broadly speaking Right has hated this from day one, partly for Jim Crow reasons and partly because rich people don’t want to pay taxes period.

    Starting with the Civil Rights movement the Left worked to make non-White people’s lives better which really pissed off the Jim Crow types and started the sorting we get today. I think in about 1980ish, the Rich right realized that they were outnumbered by the Jim Crow right, but that the Jim Crow Right’s ideas played better than their own with the public. So they set about propping up the Jim Crow types and worked to convince everyone that it was someone else’s fault they were in whatever shape. They lie like hell and it works.

    So from about 1980 to present we have a period where the Left worked to preserve and expand the New Deal and make people’s lives better, but they ended up fighting a rear guard action because a whole bunch of idiots were convinced that if they cut taxes magic would happen and they were all terrified of the ghost of Ronald Regan.

    So, now we get to the present were a whole lot of poor and middle class Whites have convinced themselves that they are special snow flakes and a whole lot of non-Black non-Whites have convinced themselves they’re white. This whole time, these people have been protected by the New Deal and what the Left did to protect that. Now what happens when that support gets instantly kicked out. I saw this today:

    https://jabberwocking.com/republicans-officially-unveil-their-plan-tax-cuts-for-the-rich-paid-for-by-the-poor/

    In plain English they want to:

    Cut Medicare payments to hospitals for indigent care.
    Cap Medicaid outlays based on state population.
    Cut the federal copay for Medicaid.
    Add a work requirement to Medicaid.
    Reduce Medicaid payments for everyone to the current lowest level.
    Get rid of the middle-class subsidy increase for Obamacare.

    If the Right does this, and there’s no reason to think they won’t, this will hit the poor and middle class Whites of AL, MS, and ooh, boy FL, like two feet to the face. It won’t be like it has been for the last 50 years of frog boiling.

    The Tarrifs, the Deportation Concentration camps, and this will annihilate this country’s economy. I’m also starting to think that the leaders of the Right don’t understand this. I used to think Theil was actually a smart mastermind type. Based off his latest op-ed, I think he’s actually closer to a brain dead hillbilly crackpot. Old Man McGucken with less personality and more banal evil. I think they’ve all essentially convinced themselves that they are smarter and better than us or that they are chosen by god. But in reality, they’re all fucking loons. What happens when they kick the supports out.

    Jim Crow governance “works” so long as the poor and middle class Whites think they are better than they actually are. What happens when you violently rub their face in the fact that they aren’t?

    7
  22. Lucysfootball says:

    So big changes at Meta (Facebook). First they scrapped their DEI programs. Nice to know that one of Zuckerberg’s reasons was on solid ground:
    In an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan on Friday, Zuckerberg said he thought the environment at many companies had gotten too culturally “neutered” — a realization he said he came to when he started interacting with more men in the mixed martial arts community.
    And they will allow more types of content: On Tuesday, Meta made clear that users are free to characterize members of the LGBTQ+ community as mentally ill, or weird, “given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality.”
    I’m Jewish. I wonder whether they would allow Jews to be categorized as enemies of the state and candidates for extermination. After all, they do have historical precedent. Just like throughout history homosexuals have been categorized as mentally ill and weird, Jews have been considered worthy of expulsion or death by torture.
    Pathetic/disgusting that someone worth a couple hundred of billion dollars can adjust his values to appeal to Trump.

    9
  23. CSK says:

    Per CNN, Jack Smith resigned as special counsel as of yesterday.

    2
  24. MarkedMan says:

    @Beth:

    Jim Crow governance “works” so long as the poor and middle class Whites think they are better than they actually are. What happens when you violently rub their face in the fact that they aren’t?

    To repeat myself, Mississippi and Alabama, for at least the past 200 years. Given that history, there is no reason to think that MAGAs will suddenly realize anything. They will be told who to hate and despise next and that’s where they will focus their attention.

    6
  25. dazedandconfused says:

    @gVOR10:

    Perhaps, but when dealing with the mind of a child it’s risky to dare them to do something. Dismissal by contempt is a tacit dare. Attention-seeking babble may be more artfully dismissed with a short laugh and by changing the subject.

    1
  26. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Beth:

    So from about 1980 to present…

    I’ll agree except that I would count it from about 1965 or so (War on Poverty, Civil Rights Act, and so on). Nixon’s “we’re all Keynesians now” was both aspirational and a head fake, in that he really did want to find a conservative approach to cooling the economy. Trying to balance the budget all in one move didn’t turn out to be the way. But Nixon was probably schizophrenic in a political sense. Some of the foreign policy was insightful, other parts were cynical and destructive. Economically, my take is that he was a disaster, and his mistakes paved the way for the neo-Jim Crow and tax the poor to feed the rich policies of Reagan onward. (And both Nixon and Reagan are Profiles in Courage-level statesmen in comparison to what followed on the GOP side.)

    I rooted for conservatism in the bad old days because I still had hope. Older and (hopefully) wiser now, I’m fully in the “centrism is where progress goes to die” camp. Others can point to Biden’s “successes” all they want, and do the “half a loaf” proverbs all they want, but the rising tide is swamping the more fragile boats and the neediest in our society are still only getting the crumbs from the half loaf. ETA: And sadly, I don’t think anything happens from rubbing the faces of poor whites in “it.” They’ll still be white and have whatever level of White privilege/power they’ve always had. “Po’ white trash,” will always be better than the alternative in their minds. But I’ll hope for you to be right all the same (knowing which hand fills first in the “hope in one hand…” formula).

    My apologies to Huey and Angela once again. We had the chance to burn it down and blinked. Now it’s gonna get burned down by people who only care about enshrining the rubble as rubble. Great job, Brownie voters.

    1
  27. Just nutha ignint crackerddd says:

    @Lucysfootball: Oh [expletive, deleted].

    1
  28. al Ameda says:

    @Flat Earth Luddite:

    The work and effort our hosts put in to making this a welcoming place is always appreciated but seldom mentioned by Luddite. The overall tone and nature of the group here is so rare on the interwebs … to me, it feels like a bunch of friends and neighbors sitting at the coffee shop on a Saturday morning.

    Let me second that.
    This is one of the few ‘current event opinion and comment’ blogs I’ve been on regularly that isn’t a fricken blowtorch. For the most part people around here are pretty damned civil with regard to opposing opinions, such as they are.

    I know that there are no blog nirvanas. Sure, there’s some passive aggressive snarking (yeah, guilty as charged). But, thanks to all who keep this place almost civilized.

    8
  29. JohnSF says:

    @Flat Earth Luddite: ~
    Can we all get drunk and haz a brawl?
    😉

    To be less silly: I like OTB because, apart from our esteemed hosts (*bows*) there are lots of smart, amusing, informed (and occasionally surly) commenters here.

    It’s pleasant to get educated about American politics, and also have some discursive chat about general shit and nonsense from time to time.

    Also, to periodically exercise my inclination to long-winded pedantry.
    🙂

    9
  30. gVOR10 says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker: I tend to date it to Goldwater in 1964. His campaign is the first I’m aware of that explicitly thought that with advertising and money they could sell a glibertarian millionaire to the electorate.

    Nixon’s problem was that he didn’t want to fight inflation by tightening money and risking recession and he really, really didn’t want to raise taxes for Vietnam. And he had a compliant Fed Chair. Like most politicians, to him “Keynesian” = “OK to run deficit”. Not that he really believed it, but that he could use it to say it was OK to run a deficit. And it worked. He got reelected, at least for awhile, and dumped the problem eventually on Carter.

    4
  31. JohnSF says:

    @becca:
    Churchill’s famous response to a criticism of his grammar:

    “This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.”

    4
  32. gVOR10 says:

    I think I stumbled across where this Greenland nonsense came from. Axios has a story about Praxis,

    “I went to Greenland to try to buy it,” Dryden Brown tweeted in November. Brown, 28, is the CEO of a company called Praxis, which is part of a broader movement known as the Network State. I recently wrote about the Network Staters, who say they want to create a host of privately funded, crypto-friendly countries all around the world. Zealots of this ideology believe they’re building the future, but critics of the movement see it as little more than a bizarre neo-colonial effort to lay claim to existing countries, re-write their legal frameworks, and extract all the wealth and resources from them.

    Thiel is a backer. I expect somebody had a conversation with Trump at Mar-a-Lago about the real estate potential of Greenland.

    I don’t care how bad Global Warming is, I can’t see Trump Tower, Nuuk being a great investment.

    3
  33. JohnSF says:

    @Not the IT Dept.:
    Is it impossible for Governor Newsom to turn round and say: “Seeing as California is one of the richest polities on the planet, you can take your money and shove it, sonny.”

    Also, can Rep. Davidson not have the common decency to wait at least until people are not being evacuated and their homes burnt out before trying to score partisan political points?
    Who would vote for such an arrant arsehole?

    4
  34. Gustopher says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:

    Others can point to Biden’s “successes” all they want, and do the “half a loaf” proverbs all they want, but the rising tide is swamping the more fragile boats and the neediest in our society are still only getting the crumbs from the half loaf.

    He guided America through an incredibly difficult time, and it wasn’t a complete shitshow. We didn’t have the predicted recession. Inflation was below our peer nations’. Build Back Better has a lot of investment in green energy.

    You might see that as half a loaf, but I think we would have been a full loaf back without him. So hypothetical gain of 1.5 loafs!

    3
  35. JohnSF says:

    @Lucysfootball:
    Looks like Zuckerberg may have some legal liability in the EU if it follows this course.
    The wheels of EU legalism grind slow, but they often grind with exceeding fines.
    I suspect this may be why Sir Nick Clegg departed from Meta.

    3
  36. Gustopher says:

    @Lucysfootball:

    Zuckerberg said he thought the environment at many companies had gotten too culturally “neutered” — a realization he said he came to when he started interacting with more men in the mixed martial arts community.

    I assume he was kicked in the head a few times?

    Tuesday, Meta made clear that users are free to characterize members of the LGBTQ+ community as mentally ill, or weird, “given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality.”

    We really have a stigma against mental health issues, far beyond the actual impact of these issues. Meanwhile lots of Americans are on antidepressants and many more self medicate with alcohol.

    I did catch the use of “transgenderism.” Can “Democrat Party” be far behind?

    5
  37. Lucysfootball says:

    @Gustopher: Men in the mixed martial arts community. So he interacted with a group of men that is overwhelmingly white and conservative, and discovered that diversity in the workplace is a bad thing. They might run into a black person, or a woman, or worst of all, a black women.
    I did make a mistake when I said Zuckerberg adjusted his values. That statement was based on a fact not in evidence, namely that he had any values to start with.

    3
  38. Monala says:

    @Beth: it will hit a lot more than poor white folks in AL and MS. It will hit my family especially hard. I have a daughter who is a full time college student at a competitive college. She’s on a full scholarship and is doing very well academically. She works part time, and studies a lot. She’s also on Medicaid, which pays for her glasses and several medications she needs. Without it, she wouldn’t be able to be in school. With a work requirement that would (most likely) require many more hours than she currently works, she wouldn’t be able to study as much, or do as well in school, and might lose her scholarship.

    Meanwhile, I am on disability. I had an ACA marketplace health insurance policy with subsidies, and now I’m on Medicare. I also get financial assistance from the state to help with my out of pocket costs. If those go away, I won’t be able to afford my healthcare and I’ll end up dying.

    1
  39. CSK says:

    @JohnSF:

    What led you to OTB?

  40. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @gVOR10: I’d forgotten Goldwater. My bad.

  41. Gustopher says:

    @JohnSF:

    Who would vote for such an arrant arsehole?

    The people of Ohio’s 8th Congressional District.

    They’re the salt of the Earth. I assume that phrase is a Carthage reference, and that if you get too many of these people in one place, I.e., if you salt the earth, nothing good can grow.

    3
  42. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @gVOR10:

    Zealots of this ideology believe they’re building the future, but critics of the movement see it as little more than a bizarre neo-colonial effort to lay claim to existing countries, re-write their legal frameworks, and extract all the wealth and resources from them.

    Wait…
    Are you telling me that neo-colonially laying claim to existing countries and re-writing their legal frameworks to extract all the wealth and resources from them, isn’t “building the future?”

    It all depends on what kind of a future one is seeking. “Sucks to be you” is still a future. And it needs to be built if they’re gonna have it. It won’t happen naturally. At least not fast enough for them.

    3
  43. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Gustopher: Interesting math, and if that’s the way you want to look at it, fine by me. I’ll still decline. Biden did better than I thought he would. That’s not that high of a bar to jump, though.

    Q: What do you call 200 Congress people and 1000 billionaires at the bottom of the ocean.

    A: A start.

    2
  44. Michael Reynolds says:

    @gVOR10:

    The response to the wall shouldn’t have been, “That’s terrible.” but, “That’s stupid.”

    100%. Being afraid gives the opponent (Trump) power. I despise the way people rush to victimhood. Positioning yourself as a victim invites further victimization. Sure, kind and decent people will feel sorry for you, but they’re not going to do a damn thing for you but amplify your victim status. At the same time the predators are seeing you as a newborn wildebeest.

    4
  45. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Lucysfootball: I dunno. “The rest of you can all ESAD for all I care” does demonstrate a values system, for what it’s worth.

    1
  46. JohnSF says:

    @CSK:
    iirc back in about 2003 I stumbled over OTB from a link from another blog.
    Periodically lurked about.
    Posted sometimes with a previous name: John Farren.
    (Disused after my old email addy got nuked)
    Wandered off for a bit.

    Became a more regular visitor/commenter under present JohnSF identity around, um, 2010?

    3
  47. CSK says:

    Trump today professed astonishment at how many countries there are in the world. “Over a hundred,” he marveled.

    Gee, who knew?

    5
  48. JohnSF says:

    @Gustopher:
    Here’s me, thinking Carthage was a suburb of Cincinnati!
    These day probs salt the roads, rather than salt the earth?

    3
  49. Jay L Gischer says:

    @gVOR10:

    The response to the wall shouldn’t have been, “That’s terrible.” but, “That’s stupid.”

    I endorse Mistermix’s approach. About Greenland for instance, I would say, “why would we want that? Why would that be good for me, or for you? and avoid the “that’s stupid”, because that might likely make a reader here think I’m calling them stupid. And while I might give that proposition some serious consideration in certain cases… If I don’t call them “stupid” but ask the question the chances are:

    1. They won’t answer the question.
    2. They might be bothered by not having an answer (or not, we’re running a statistical game).
    3. They might decide “Trump is doing something stupid”.

    Don’t paint your conversant into a corner. Always leave an out. It’s a fundamental from Dale Carnegie.