Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, February 22, 2025
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59 comments
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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
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BlueSky.
This country’s adversaries are surely laughing with delight.
Trump fires chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and two other military officers
Little men purging those of superior accomplishments.
Many people say…
Donald Trump was recruited by KGB with codename ‘Krasnov’, claims ex-Soviet spy
If it walks like a duck…
Hey! I’m just asking questions.
https://www.theverge.com/elon-musk/617090/elon-musk-cpac-2025-transcript
headline:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8972190/
Our shadow President and power behind the throne.
Although I am not much of a user of Facebook, I follow my elected officials on Facebook to keep in touch with their posting. It was interesting that the latest from Sen Cornyn touting his newsletter was inundated with comments almost universally condemning Elon Musk as an unelected force meddling in our government. And by extension, condemning Cornyn. Now these things are run by staff and I don’t know if the commentary has any impact or even gets thr0ugh to the Senator but it is possibly a indicator of where the winds are blowing.
Meanwhile in Texas…
West Texas measles cases rise to 90
@Scott:
Yes, it gets through to the Senator. They are all intensely interested in how they are perceived, and constituent responses are logged, distilled, and frequently reported. Going as far back as my congressional internship I remember tallying everything from phone calls to letters. A US Senator or House member isn’t going to read every email, but the job of the office staff is to manage, track, and report.
He knows. The question is whether there are back channel discussions being had about what to DO about it. My gut says yes.
So.
Are Trump and MAGAs Nazis or Stalinists? I’m leaning to Stalinism as the primary model. Purges, political correctness, corruption.
Smarter people than me: Discuss.
@Jen:..He knows. The question is whether there are back channel discussions being had about what to DO about it. My gut says yes.
Spill your gut.
I find your comments based on your political experience informative and educational.
Post submitted Sat. Feb. 22, 2025 7:48am cst.
Last weekend there was some buzz in the aviation blogs regarding an upcoming major announcement from Southwest. There was much speculation of a merger or an acquisition, and to a lesser extent about the airline adding a new aircraft type (possibly the A220)
Instead Southwest announced for the first time in its history(!) it would lay off over a thousand employees?
Why?
Because some group of rich investors wants to loot the company.
Brett Snyder has an early, quick analysis on it.
TL;DR:
@Scott:
Sort of six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Well, here’s a little good news:
http://www.newsweek.com/chocolate-coffee-wine-scientists-metabolic-syndrome-heart-disease-2034267
@Mister Bluster: Okay, I will expound on this.
I believe that the strength of the pro-Trump Republican faction in the general public has caught the old line off guard. They have to know that there’s no real successor to Trump. Trump is also old. This will leave a power vacuum, but it’s in the party’s interest to have someone more predictable as the leader of the party. Trump sucks up all the air (and money) in the room. That’s not good for party-building, and they can only coast on his coattails while he’s around.
This is a long way of saying: I think Republican leadership is going along with Trump not just because they are scared of his base–I think they realize where things are heading and are hoping that the spell will break once people start really suffering. They’ll be able to point to their constituencies, and say “we can’t keep going like this.” But, they are going to wait until Trump’s shine is well and truly damaged. They need him to tank *and really have it stick* to retake the reins of the party.
@Jen:
I think you’re absolutely right.
@CSK: Political parties really don’t have much power. Their job is to raise money and secure seats. They cannot do either of those things while Trump is around. There’s a Julius Caesar vibe right now, IMHO.
@Scott: I have very mixed feelings about this.
One one hand, I am very, very reluctant to take anything a spy, or former spy says at face value. They are too damn good at lying.
AND, if this should get legs in the US, good. It would definitely be a “live by the sword, die by the sword” moment for Trump, who lives by the defamation and conspiracy theory.
My memory flashback: the people dancing away and cheering on an LA skyscraper in Independence Day.
Odds of asteroid hitting Earth in 2032 suddenly change—again
@Scott:
It’s interesting that some commenters here (and elsewhere) feel a need to add a disclaimer when discussing the Trump-Putin connection, couching it as a “possibility” but not as “likelihood,” or heaven forbid, as “certitude” and thereby end up looking as irrational as a MAGA supporter espousing “Stop the Steal” or “Deep State.”
But as we stand here observing our nation thrust into expanding turmoil never witnessed before in our lifetimes, we can all attest that our once stable framework of governance and societal civility is indeed being “stolen” and a seriously “dark” and callous “deep state” is now being constructed.
So, I wonder at what point do people finally arrive at the conclusion that something really bad, really corrupt, and truly outside the purely innate capacity of this society, is taking place and upending their world.
Is it the publicized cessation of long standing strategic relationship with allies through which powerful international framework has provided an umbrella of security for our population, and the capacity for this nation to thrive over many generations? Because that is happening.
Is it the mass firing of thousands of civil servants (and threatening tens of thousands more) whose entire careers have been committed to ensuring national security, public safety, public health, public education, public information? Because that is happening.
Is it the appointment to critical, high level office in government, persons of very low professional suitability, capability, but of rabid sycophancy? Because that is happening.
Is it the cloaking of government transparency and accountability, even from elected representatives? Because that is happening as well.
Is it the undermining of national data security, and providing access to these sensitive resources by unvetted private actors who have questionable backgrounds? Because this is happening.
Is it the deliberate assault on the pillars of national financial security by:
– decoupling from the modulating influence of an independent Federal Reserve
– moving to legitimize “phantom” digital currency while de-legitimizing our USD as the primary reserve of choice — a status that in no small way contributes to the financial stability of this nation.
– proposing the sale of this nation’s gold reserves which serve as one element of monetary guarantee contributing to the preeminent status of the USD.
– overt projection of “bad faith” into the international space, an “intangible” that also provides guarantee for assurance for elevated status of our USD
Because all these things are under discussion.
And more pointedly:
Is it the degree of accomodation Trump is willing to offer the murderous Putin regime, while offering the long suffering victim, Ukraine, no such consideration, but rather, attempting to extort mineral benefits while making typical Trump insubstantial, hollow unenforceable assurances? That too is happening.
Is it talk of collaborative economic projects with Russia while threatening good friends with hostile assault on their sovereignty for self serving gain? Because that is happening —– as is conceding regional sphere influence to future reconstituted Russian imperialism.
At what point does the additive effect of all these policy shocks, coming at us with intentional “blitzkrieg” impact, sufficiently serve to shatter an individual’s reticence to soberly consider the “de facto” nature of this vector and the awful truth towards which it points?
This is so dumb. Taxpayers already paid for these charging stations.
https://electrek.co/2025/02/21/trump-to-shut-down-all-8000-ev-charging-ports-at-federal-govt-buildings/
Finally got my Memeorandum back!
@Scott:
Masha Gessen sees them as essentially the same.
Left populist or right populist, the takeaway is that Trump may be the first time we’ve faced it, but he’s a common type. They usually need 80+ percent popularity to succeed. The kicker is SCOTUS, and we want them to see bowing to their RW funders will destroy their legitimacy.
@Jen:..Okay, I will expound on this.
Thank you for the reply.
I need to read it a few more times.
Post submitted Sat. Feb. 22, 2025 9:37am cst
@Rob1:
Yep.
People can’t see the unexpected, they can’t accept the improbable and will dismiss any proof that the improbable is actually occurring. It’s safer to stick with the common wisdom because even if you’re wrong, you’re wrong with the herd and the herd won’t punish you.
A corollary is that it is never profitable to get the right answer before the rest of the class.
@charontwo: RE: the ketamine-Musk connection
Truly bad and dangerous implications for an unstable man entrusted with national security and stability, and he has $400B net worth to boot.
But also bad and dangerous that unstable Trump functions as a “drug” in the brains of 47% of this nation’s voters, acting upon their neuro-bio-chemical pathways. Call that hyperbole but I’m betting PET scans and endocrinological type testing would bear this out.
@Michael Reynolds:
I’ve always been a diligent “student” in class and in life. But being first to get the right answer was never my goal, rather to merely arrive at the right answer, whatever it takes.
Also it is a disturbing measure of impaired discernment that MAGA fandom, including and especially evangelicals, look for “signs and portents” in mystical and mythical representation to affirm their misguided inclinations, but cannot see the actual events taking place before their very eyes.
@Jax: I just keep getting the feeling they are poking the bear. Trying to start a fire they can rush in to put out. They’re just waiting for a reason…piling insult upon insult..waiting for the dam to break.
@Jen:
Yes, Trump’s days are numbered and a power vacuum will inevitably result when he is gone. But, the “old guard” Republican cohort has been smashed. It will not reconstitute. Something else is coming. Something evil this way comes.
While the current regime guts the federal government in the name of a phony war on waste and inefficiency, it’s also willing to spend $200 million on an ad campaign to thank itself for “closing the border.”
@Rob1:
A lyric I tried to get permission to use in a book – and finally got permission two years after I published without that lyric:
@Rob1: Well said.
One of the greatest causes of Our Awful Age is hesitancy — to call things what they plainly are, and to act when needed. In the first case, the rise of authoritarianism and fascism in America has been as conspicuous as you can possibly get.
In the case of aligning with Russia, that’s just as naked. While people in the MAGAverse have different motivations for it, the desire is clearly there. Steve Bannon calls for an apocalyptic end to modernity, returning to a “traditionalism” that makes us a more natural ally of Putin’s Russia, not contemporary Europe. Christian nationalists want to pursue a clash of civilizations in which they have more in common with Russia than the fellow citizens they despise. Many avaricious business types want fewer constraints and more corruption; the kind of crony capitalism in Russia is a model they admire (of course, as long as the cronyism and corruption favor them). And you can continue the list to include other types of MAGA supporters who have complementary reasons to favor Russia over the West.
No one has a complete explanation for Trump’s personal fetish for Putin and Putinism. Hypotheses range from kompromat to stupidity, from an energetic embrace of a political program to a lazy accession to his Russophile subordinates. But it’s abundantly clear that he’s willing to build to a world divided into spheres of influence, operating under the crudest form of imperialism, run for the benefit of autocrats and hegemons unopposed from within and without their own borders.
Hesitancy in acknowledging what stares us in the face is, again, what helps make this Our Awful Age possible.
I want to make sure D. Taylor sees this potential Tab Tab from NYT. A long article about people searching for and hoarding favorite discontinued items.
@Kathy: This type of behavior among outside stakeholders has been going on since Berkshire Hathaway made shirts.
Colorado State University has said that it will comply with the current regime’s anti-DEI directives. In his public statement, the chancellor made a statement that will no doubt be copied by other universities when they bend the knee:
@Rob1: I’m not clear on what you’re trying to advocate for here. Are you suggesting that the fact that roughly half of the voters no longer share values previously defined as “American” and are willing to give Michael Moore’s “giant FU to the country” can be addressed in some meaningful way that restores the nation to a prior equilibrium-ish condition? Are you advocating violence to correct the imbalance by filling cemeteries? Are you advocating changing to a different standard/definition for “citizen?” Some other course of action?
Could you please elaborate?
@Kingdaddy: I really think Trump thinks Russian is the model for the golden age he is pushing for. I suppose it is good to be Putin or his autocrats while everyday Russians struggle. But name another country developed country that spends nothing on international development and threatens and bullies its neighbor. Recently and suddenly, a country besides Russia comes to mind.
@Rob1: I think the MAGA evangelicals see what’s happening: they see that they are going to have restored cultural hegemony.
I think they’re wrong on that point, but it’s possible that they don’t care as long as society looks like what they think it should.
Or can convince themselves that it does.
@Michael Reynolds: “finally got permission two years after I published without that lyric:”
Time for the “revised and expanded” edition!
@Michael Reynolds: That may well be a sadder story than it is ironic because the line from the song goes “hears” not “sees.”
But I don’t know how copyright works.
@just nutha:
A long time ago we had a terrible year when we failed to snag some big contracts, and lost a few we’d held for years. This left the company with excess capacity, and there were layoffs in the operations area.
But then one of the owners insisted every department fire Someone. Anyone. For any reason. Why? To cut costs. Several department heads resisted.
In our department the boss pointed out we were understaffed (to put it mildly). The owner countered that we had failed to win several proposals*. The boss argued win or lose, you still need a lot of people to put the piles of wastepaper together and present them. And that we’d lose skilled personnel who had taken over a year to learn how to do this effectively.
So the owner relented, at least with us.
What I found offensive is that the company didn’t lose money that year, it just made less than forecast, and didn’t grow. And yet here’s this very rich person trying to cut costs in ways that would lose his company expertise and cost him some more money when he needed to have it back. And, no, it wasn’t a matter of share value. the company is privately held.
*The owner also did not mention we lost the biggest one because the price he set was too high, and two different competitors beat us on that.
@Rob1:
@Michael Reynolds:
I’ve been trying to push intuitionism, per Enchanted Anerica, into our discussions at OTB. The only way to make sense of most people’s political thinking is to recognize that much of it doesn’t make sense.
@Kingdaddy: I like your more concise encapsulation and analysis better. Thumbs up.
What is, and should be inescapable to all, is Trump’s complete refutation of the civil framework built upon generation after generation of contribution and sacrifice, wiping away consequential lessons through trial and error. He now seeks to reshape America from a template hallucinated within his stunted mind, and guided by similarly defective advisors.
@just nutha: Which one post? Or as a theme?
Taking a stab at your question:
With accumulating evidence, data, actions, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore how specific Trump policy rollout is disadvantaging the U.S. and undermining foundational security, while simultaneously, offering advantage in ways to a currently beleaguered revanchist Russia, that traditional conservatives would never embrace.
That people are slow to find this troubling for its de facto implications, is very troubling in itself. Or should be.
We need to first face and recognize the countenance of this monster. And then we need to figure how to respond. Either that or capitulate to a staggering loss of stability and security in an increasingly conflicted world, while giving up our hard earned democratic assurances.
@Scott:
A couple of things:
(1) Big strong men, with tears in their eyes, come up to me and say, ‘Mr. President, I’m so proud of you, I mean, I’ve never been recruited for anything.’
(2) Finally, a conspiracy we can believe in.
@Rob1: No, I’m clear on the theme. I just wonder how the theme fleshes out into action/change/transformation. The fact that the point you are bringing up has been sucking most of the air out of our room (among others) for most of two years (or longer) now seems to argue that significant numbers of us have “finally arrive(d) at the conclusion that something really bad, really corrupt, and truly outside the purely innate capacity of this society, is taking place and upending their world.” Who “their” denotes may be problematical though as it is possible that some of the people whose world is being upended actively support and encourage said upending. As I noted in my earlier comment almost half of the voters supported this and fully half specifically rejected the alternative by voting for Trump or symbolic protest candidates.
I guess I’m asking “so what?” To channel an old-timey evangelical philosopher (would be) king from when I was in college, “How, then, shall we live?” Is your post some sort of Erhard Seminar “visualize whirled peas” enlightenment thing where when the media starts adding the
commentary contenthard fact presentation you wish for, Americans will say “OMFG!!!! The nation is dying!!! We gotta do sumpin!!!” Is there more than people are ignoring how bad this is (with which I agree, BTW, but can’t fix)?ETA: (And thanks for the clarifying addition) “That people are slow to find this troubling for its de facto implications, is very troubling in itself. Or should be.”
I’m not persuaded that people are slow on the uptake. I think there are probably three cohorts at work on this front: People like you who “get it,” people who DGAF about it, and people who either actively support all of the program or inactively support the parts they don’t like to get the parts they want. There are probably other subgroups, too, but I see these as the main actors. This may be an erode the margins issue, but I’m not convinced that it is. I’m still at two competing and incompatible philosophies/ways of life competing to occupy one space. Won’t work.
Still no Epstein documents even though Patel promised them on Day One. I guess Trump is listed too often for them to be released
@Just nutha ignint cracker: “… or inactively support the parts they don’t like to get the parts they want.”
It occurred to me that this feature is kind of a hallmark of bipartisan government/spirit of compromise government of the sort which we mostly admire around here. Not always beneficial, it would appear (nor should we expect it to be–sometimes standing for principle is more important even if you lose).
@Daryl:
Pam Bondi says it’s sitting on her desk and that she’s “reviewing” it. That means she’s busy expunging Trump’s name.
@CSK:
Then she’ll run out of black markers.
As some of you may remember, I’ve pulled away from this blog for a variety of reasons, with the main one being that I wanted to spend my time finding some way to oppose the nazification of America. When I mentioned I was taking a break several people asked that I update them on anything I felt was making a difference. I don’t know if these two things qualify, but it’s all I can think to do.
First, I’ve been calling the offices of the Republican members of congress, even outside my district. These are constitutional issues and these members have sworn an oath to protect the constitution for the whole country and so I feel they are answerable to every American citizen.
Second, I’ve been forwarding the following to everyone I know 60 or older:
I encourage any like minded people to do the same.
@Daryl:
She can borrow some from Trump. I’m sure he has a goodly supply left over from distorting hurricane landfall maps.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Yes, but it doesn’t help that the people who “know better” (or at least seem to know better) self censor and distance themselves from any acknowledgement of threat from a Trump-Putin nexus.
Sure, everyone has different thresholds for validating information and differing processes for doing so, but those processes also includes internal sanctions governing outward appearance to others.
It’s time to dispense with all that. We must decide if the society we were handed is worth standing up for, or, to acquiesce to rogue, malignant personalities.
I disagree with your characterization of the electorate as consisting of opposed, apathetic, or supporters. You and I have both had our conversations with those who claim support for Trump’s policies, all of which revealed a massive deficit in understanding their world, their nation’s history
human affairs, and the complex issues that affect them. This is in part due to a lack of exposure to certain building blocks of knowledge and in part, due to being inundated by deliberate campaigns of disinformation.
This cannot be confronted and reversed if people who should know better remain silent because they are afraid of how they might sound or appear.
@MarkedMan: Will do. Thanks. Also let them know that you reject abandonment or coercion of Ukraine.
There’s noise about the ai bubble springing a major leak. Earnings reports coming out next week are not looking good. Did DeepSeek deepsix American ai dreams of grandeur, after all?
Also, the big drop is supposed to happen in 2026. These tech stocks are valued based on future profits now, not actual value.
I imagine this is not sitting well with the South African fellow.
@MarkedMan: It does seem like pointing to SS and Medicare cuts would be effective with that demographic, but it’s sad that it takes potential personal financial hurt to wake people up. Whatever works, I guess. Kudos for doing that.
I think I may have mentioned that my nephew’s significant other does logistics work for the military. He just got an email that says he needs to send in an email by Monday listing 5 things he did during the week or he is fired, as of Monday. He runs the unit under the supervision of an admiral. I guess its a good thing we wasn’t doing an extended project that took up the entire week. Seriously, what amateur hour management.
Steve
@steve:
“Five things I did this week…”
Sounds like “what I did on my summer vacation.”
Infantile.
@Kingdaddy:
The ironically amusinh, yet tragic, thing is that the image of “traditional values” Russia that MAGA have mostly exists only in their heads. It’s projection, whose main foundation is just the chum that Putin throws out in speeches from time to time.
It’s true enough that Putin loathes liberalism; but from the point of view of Russian authoritarian imperialist/nationalist.
That school of thought has no more fondness for the pre-modern Western heritage than for Western modernity.
And resents the US above all for its destruction of the Soviet Super Power dominion that Russian nationalists generally regard as being theirs by right.
And the concept of a world divided into “spheres of control” is also facile.
In a world of machtpolitik, the US will always have too much power-potential for rivals to be content with even a western hemisphere ascendancy.
Nor for that matter is a China that becomes a full-bore Super Power likely to not aim at reducing Russia to subservience, or to not aim at full naval domination of at least the west Pacific, Indian Ocean, and the Austronesian seas.
It would repay a lot of folks to re-read Kennan’s analysis of the roots of Soviet foreign policy not so much in Communism but in Russian traditional ambitions.
And NSC-68 on why the US could not permit a potential adversary to dominate multiple major industrial and technological regions.
It is also perfectly obvious, to some Europeans, that the obvious escape route for Russia from the China dependency trap it has landed itself in, is to achieve hegemony over Europe and live off the rent.
That is not something we can permit.
@steve: I just got one as well. This is so stupid.
I’m tempted to respond in huge gory details about all the legal issues/prior art stuff. Either that or something along the lines of “cannot answer because of your lack of authority and inability to follow government procedures for security purposes.”
Maybe I’ll just report it as a phishing attempt.
Questions, comments, observations?
Trump administration shuts down national database documenting police misconduct.
(The) database, first proposed by Trump in 2020 and created by Biden administration in 2023, is now offline.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/22/trump-administration-shuts-down-national-police-misconduct-database?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
@Flat Earth Luddite:
Trump probably forgot it was his idea.
In other news, Kash Patel will be acting head of ATF in addition to FBI director.
@CSK:
I thought the same thing.
In the other news report, when you’ve fired the majority of the field agents (and upper and mid management), it’s easy to run a one-person shop or two.