Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, March 30, 2025
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35 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.
Top vaccine official resigns from FDA, criticizes RFK Jr. for promoting ‘misinformation and lies’
I wanted to highlight this statement because it seems totally emblematic of Trump and his administration.
We are already seeing propaganda in every official statement and it will only get worse.
Per NBC, Trump says he “couldn’t care less” if foreign auto makers have to raise their prices in response to U.S. tariffs.
Per Newsweek, he also hasn’t ruled out military force to take over Greenland.
And he’s not going to fire anyone involved in the Signal group chat.
@Scott: This part of the article is also worth highlighting:
Trump is now doing a full-frontal assault on part of his own legacy–ironically one of the few unquestionably good things he did during his first term. It gives lie to the idea that his second term will just be a repeat of the first. He’s moved to much more radical positions, not because of any evolution in his private beliefs (of which he has few), but because of who he sees as his most reliable supporters and allies, and what he thinks will best entrench his power.
When looked at broadly, Operation Warp Speed was always somewhat of an anomaly for Trump, who has a history of anti-vaccine statements stretching back decades, and even in the context of Covid, almost all his rhetoric that year–underplaying the severity of the virus, attacking the use of masks while promoting miracle cures from hydroxychloroquine to bleach–it was all roughly part of the ideological home where antivaxxers live. The reason he backed the vaccine initially is because he saw it as a way of casting himself as the hero who saved the nation from the crisis that he knew was damaging his reelection chances that year. Even after leaving office, he was bragging about OWS for quite some time, until he realized much of his core audience hated it (it was one of the few instances where he heard boos at his own rallies). And I think he realized at some point that the likes of RFK were natural allies because they were cut from the same cloth as he was, bilking the simpleminded by attacking mainstream medicine and science as a pretext for selling the modern version of snake oil (the medical equivalent of Trump Steaks or Trump Wine), which fit neatly into his attacks on the Deep State and accusations of fake news. By canning Dr. Marks, Trump has completed the circle.
I’ve commented here that Lee Atwater was right, you can’t shout “ni-clang, ni-clang, ni-clang” anymore. But Trump found out shouting “DEI, DEI, DEI” works just as well. Tom the Dancing Bug is on it.
@gVOR10: How is attacking DEI any different from attacking affirmative action, which is more than a half-century old? The names may change, but the tactic doesn’t.
@Kylopod: I miss Kevin Drum and his charts for everything, in this case a timeline of COVID vaccine development.
Trump took credit for what other people had done, for once mis-reading his MAGA audience.
I’ve been re-reading Brad Delong’s Slouching Towards Utopia.
@Kylopod: To which I might add – How is attacking “woke” any different from attacking political correctness, which is more than three decades old? The names may change, but the tactic doesn’t.
Plus ca change indeed. Pendulums swing. But the GOPs will do everything they can: press suppression, imposing their own PC on universities and the Smithsonian, federalizing elections by EO, FOX/GOP propaganda, and gawd knows what their plan for 2028 is, to make it illegal for the pendulum to swing back.
Found this by allowing some links starting at LGM. It’s a nice article on how the influence of the supplement industry and alternative medicine got started. These faith based “healers” were actually selling bleach to treat covid. Looking back, I am now retired, I remember that we were asked to provide some alternate healing support for our network. It was supposed to be one of my projects as there was supposedly a lot fo demand. I couldn’t quite bring myself to do much to support this so I eventually told my boss that he should take this away from me and he agreed. In retrospect I wish that I had more actively opposed this.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/leaders-genesis-ii-church-health-and-healing-who-sold-toxic-bleach-fake-miracle-cure
Steve
@gVOR10:
@Kylopod:
Clearly “DEI” is much more veiled and subtle than “ni-clang.” DEI includes so much more than just Black people, it includes women too, and so it clearly resonated with angry, alienated, and resentful White men on both those counts.
Re recent discussion of the gutlessness of university boards, today’s Sarasota Herald Tribune has an article on Guv DeUseless appointing Republican pols as Florida school presidents.
Actor Richard Chamberlain, 90, has died. RIP.
I have been staying busy with serious yard work. I usually don’t like using power tools when working outside, but I broke out the chain saw and blower. Pulled 3 ticks off. Fingers crossed no Lyme disease.
Spring sprang a blast of pollen this week and everything is covered in a super fine green powder. Seed strands of varying shapes and sizes are blowing everywhere. Luckily, I removed the cushions from the rattan couch on the screen porch right before the pollen bomb. Otherwise they would be lime green, not a nice smoky taupe.
If all that seems mundane, it is and I find it comforting. Things are not “normal” now, but can, for moments, resemble normal.
@becca: Assuming you pulled the whole ticks off and quickly, you should be good. A tick usually has to be attached for around 24 hours to transmit Lyme. Unfortunately, the ones that are most effective in spreading Lyme are the nymphs, which are teeny-tiny, about the size of a poppy seed. Most people can’t even see them.
Serious yard work is a ways off for us…we are coated in ice right now.
@CSK: Further along in gVOR10‘s thread was the news that Jules Pfeiffer has also shuffled off this mortal coil at 94. RIP to him also.
@Jen: unfortunately for me, our area is rife with the tiny seed tick. One was between my toes and another on my arm and another one, well… I didn’t spray myself because it wasn’t that warm and I was fully covered, tucked in pants and all. Oh well.
Btw, Sadie says hey and, while still a bit ambivalent when it comes to the feline addition, she let’s the kitten attack and bite her tail a good long time before she starts whacking her with it.
Is Trump the reincarnation of Madame Nhu?
Jules Pfeiffer
RIP
Actor Richard Chamberlain has passed away. He was 90. He was best remembered for Dr Kildare and television miniseries. None of which I watched with the exception of Wallenberg. I do remember Chamberlain for his turn as the villain of the disaster film The Towering Inferno. When he plunged to his death trying to flee the disaster, people in the movie theater cheered. RIP
I enjoyed a Bluesky post from Mark Hamill yesterday calling Musk “Sissy SpaceX”. But I think Tom Sullivan beat it today with “Reichy Rich”. He certainly is a target Dems should use.
I enjoyed a Bluesky post from Mark Hamill yesterday calling Musk “Sissy SpaceX”. But I think Tom Sullivan beat it today with “Reichy Rich”. He certainly is a target Dems should use.
@becca:
Suggestion: Get a pic of Ms. Sadie and use it as your avatar here. I’d love to see what she looks like.
A question regarding what political science academics and think tanks have been researching given the vast network of government funding being funneled to Leftist political advocacy for the last 40+ years and the professors claim to haven’t a clue
@JKB: I think at this stage of your rhetoric you will have to define “leftist” as the common meaning has been evolved ever since the 60s/70s. Also since the extreme right has taken a page out of Mao and Stalin and politicized science, facts are now beliefs subject to their ideology.
@Mister Bluster: The similarity is breathtaking fer shur.
@JKB:
You may have not have noticed but, it’s not American ‘Leftists’ who are preparing to sell out Ukraine to the benefit of Russan aggression and imperial ambitions, nor are American ‘Leftists’ in the process of terminating our most successful defense Alliance (NATO) of the past 80 years.
I understand that (actual/real) reality is hard for you to deal with when all of this capitulation and retreat is the doing of the American MAGA Right.
@CSK:
So, I’ve had my head down trying to find us a place. My family gets to the UK on Wednesday. If we pass references we will move into a new-ish 3 bedroom flat sandwiched between Queen Elizabeth Park and Hackney Wick. I like it because you feel like your starting out in contemporary South Loop and then you walk over a bridge and you’re in 90’s Wicker Park.
Anyway, every single estate agent has asked why we’re looking for a place and I’ve mumbled something about work transfers and my Fairy Gaymother has said Trump. 90% of them have asked something along the lines of “it’s not that bad, right?” We’ve both been honest that it’s that bad. The other 10% got it immediately.
Maybe JohnSF can clarify this a bit, but I get the distinct impression that if the U.S. uses military force against any country*, the rest of the world is going to wake up like a motherfucker. It will be bad, immediately.
The other aspect of this is, I don’t think the Blue States are going to accept this either. The idiots think they’ve won. But they are idiots. This isn’t some grand Palpatine-esque plan. This is, “and somehow Palpatine returned!” level stupidity. The world will not tolerate the U.S. as the sole hedgemon anymore.
*I suspect there are some places that the political leaders of the West will accept an attack on, but the people absolutely won’t.
@JKB:
Ok grandpa, let’s get you to bed.
@gVOR10: You’re one good nickname away from regaining the majority.
@JKB: Oh, look, you found an X page entirely filled with no-nothing right-wing assholes. Who could have predicted?
@JKB: Dear, at least quote the nonsensical bullshit you think is profound.
@Beth:
US invades either Greenland or Canada, no way the Atlantic Alliance survives.
And that’s minimal.
The British public will not accept a US move on Canada, imho.
@Beth:
Next to QE Park?
That’s pretty cool.
Mind, my days in London were back in the 1980’s, so things are likely very different now.
Hackney Wick used to be rather iffy, but apparently has changed a lot since then.
You are also pretty close to Victoria Park.
Which was the basis of the Blur song, “Parklife”, iirc.
Here’s a short speech for some bold Democrat to give. The historical echo is obvious.
We have before us an ordeal unlike any this nation has faced since the Civil War. We face long months, even years, of struggle and of suffering. What is our policy? What is our duty as Americans?
To fight the forces of fascism and oligarchy with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to fight against the billionaires and their servants, the selfish, the cruel, the haters. That is our policy. What is our goal? To defend the Constitution of the United States of America. To defend freedom. To honor the pledge made in our Declaration of Independence that all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we will carry on this fight however long and hard the road may be.
We will not fail. We will go on to the end. We will fight in the courts and at the ballot box. We will fight in red states and blue. We will fight in every city and town, every factory and every farm. We will fight with growing confidence and growing strength as we defend our laws, our liberty and our great nation. We will defend our rights, whatever the cost may be. We will not be intimidated. We will not bend the knee to tyranny. And we will never surrender.
That’s what I want to hear from Democrats and Independents and all decent Americans.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:..Madam Nhu…
She was a real piece of work. Her husband Ngo Dinh Diem was the first President of South Vietnam. He was assassinated on November 2, 1963 after a military coup. Twenty days before President John Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Texas.
I vaguely recall Madam Nhu saying after hearing of the assassination of President Kennedy:
“Now Jackie Kennedy knows how I feel.”
@Michael Reynolds:
I think I know that one. 🙂
Sort of.
Winston did have a way with words.
I’ve recently been re-reading his history of WW2.
Arguable, yet magnificent.
(A bit like his brickwork, lol)
It seems that Trump has been talking less about Canada lately. If I’m right about that (I may have missed more recent insanity from him on the topic), my theory about why is this:
Trump is stupid, petty, egocentric, and unable to imagine voluntarily giving up power. Everything else flows from that.
He hated Justin Trudeau for several reasons, most of them petty and personal (Trudeau caught on camera mocking him, Melania and Ivanka swooning over him) and responded in typical Trump fashing, meaning the stupidest way possible. Calling Trudeau “governor” and saying Canada was “meant” to be the 51st state, thus angering and offending the closest ally the U.S. has and destroying the close relationship the two countries have destroyed. Oh, he probably meant it to some degree, but whether or not he was serious was far less important than hurting Trudeau.
Trudeau stepped down as Prime Minister, a decision made based on Canadian politics, but following reasoning that Trump can’t can’t understand since he would never give up power. He assumes Mark Carney staged a coup and forced him out and. since he believes that everything revolves around him, he assumes that Carney did it because of Trump. That, in Trump’s mind, makes him a Trump ally, or at least adjacent to one, no matter what he’s said since. That being the case, suddenly he isn’t so worried about the “51st state” and calling the Prime Minister of Canada “governor.”
I don’t know that this is what happened, but I think it seems like the way Trump thinks.