Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, February 21, 2026
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14 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
Twitter and/or
BlueSky.
Headline:
Detentions and disappearances: how ICE has driven fear into Michigan’s Arab communities
Inside the piece:
Go ahead. Put your head in the fusion reactor.
Of course it ‘s all cruel and horrible and based entirely on bigotry and it should be stopped. But it’s hard to feel much sympathy for those who chose to bring it upon themselves. I know they didn’t think the leopard would eat their faces. Is that really an excuse? El Taco’s animus against Muslims was on full display for four years, as was his affection for Bibi. If they chose not to consider the consequences of their actions, they’ve only themselves to blame.
@Kathy:
I believe the Arabic word for schadenfreude is shamāta.
@al Ameda:
That’s good to know.
However, I don’t think wither expresses “anger at the misfortune of others.”
@Kathy:
So he voted for trump. Okay, not quite, but if he was an eligible voter inclined to vote D, then not voting had the effect of half a vote for the R.
@Eusebio:
I’m kind of reminded of this scene in The Last Crusade
Cuba blockade situation seems to be flying under the radar. Lots of misery being inflicted on the people there.
“Cuba“
I’m watching Kara Swisher interview Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion. Ben just said something that I was thinking about this morning:
Also, self-described “woke bitches” winning medals in the Olympics are stepping up.
The world is getting really strange. JD Vance described the Supreme Court as “corrupt”. I agree. I didn’t see that coming.
@Jay L. Gischer:
Well, JD would certainly have direct knowledge of this ‘corruption,’ after all he too graduated from Yale Law School, as did Supreme Court Justices Alito, Kavanaugh, Sotomayor, and Thomas, three of whom form the corrupt core of the Supreme Court.
Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.
@Jay L. Gischer: Things do seem to be coming to some kind of head.
Reuters is reporting US investors are going to overseas and emerging markets at a rapidly accelerating pace. Tech is faltering again, it’s incestuous alliances keeping up appearances, but lots think the ai bubble is maybe a real thing, after all.
The tariff debacle, made so much worse by an intimidated
scotus sitting on their hands for months on a slam dunk case, is a massive Gorgon’s knot to unwind. Not to forget a massive cudgel in this administration’s coercive foreign policy has been removed. POTUS is humiliated on the international front.
Iran is doing military exercises with Russia.
I’ll stop now.
@becca:
Oh, don’t stop, unless you have something better to do.
On aviation news:
Florida airport to be enshitified.
El Al reaches new depths of paranoia.
No, really. This is like assault with a deadly sandwich.
@becca:
Currently overseas funds are still heading into the US, but less into bonds than ito stocks, and less for dividends than for stock price rises.
And much of that is concentrated on the tech sector.
The moment that falters, I forsee major issues.
Because indications are there is a lot of dollar and stocks hedging going on.
So any stock market correction and/or dollar decline could trigger the hedges; then we may be living in “interesting times”.
Again.
Dammit.
@Kathy:
I have a very different take: Voting for the lesser of two evils is not always required when the lesser evil is still pretty fucking evil. And I’m not going to draw that line for other people.
To be utterly reductivist, if the Candidate Less Evil wanted to exterminate Group A, and Candidate More Evil wanted to exterminate Groups A and B, I wouldn’t think Group A voters would be obligated to vote for Candidate Less Evil for the betterment of Group B, no matter how much Group B tells them to vote for the lesser of two evils.
I don’t think that’s where we were, but again I’m not going to draw the line for others.
The pro-Palestinian voters were very clear that they were unhappy, and that Biden/Harris was going to have to make some kind of very visible steps to get them back on board — that was the point of so many voting “uncommitted” in the primaries.
When Harris became the nominee, she didn’t do enough to get them back on board. She didn’t make the case in a way they believed.
Was there an expectation that pro-Palestinian voters would fall in line? Or that touring with Cheney would bring in enough “moderate” voters to replace the pro-Palestinian voters? I have no idea. We saw what happened, and we saw the result.
Ultimately, the failure is on Harris (and Biden before her). Either on policy, or on convincing the voters that the policy was better than these voters thought. (And, in an election, the voter’s perception of the policy matters more than the policy — quibble away on the actual policy, but those voters didn’t see it)
A coalition only works if everyone thinks they are at least getting what they need out of it, if not what they want. Otherwise, “if my community isn’t safe, why should anyone else’s be?” is a pretty compelling argument. Sometimes, spite is all you have.
@Gustopher:
Demanding behavior so pro-Palestinian that it is anti-Israel from moderate politicians is unrealistic to the point of silliness. The Palestinians are allied with Iran and supported by them, while Israel shares Intelligence and supports the U.S. military in various ways, meaning the U.S. is faced with a need to uphold a reputation as a reliable ally.
How can it be smart for pro-Palestinian people to support Republicans in light of the GOP’s heavy reliance on Christian Zionist and other Christian Evangelical voters, given the attitudes of those voters re: the Levant?
ETA: Ben Franklin: Experience teaches a hard school, but a fool will have no other.