Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Sunday, November 2, 2025
·
11 comments
OTB relies on its readers to support it. Please consider helping by becoming a monthly contributor through Patreon or making a one-time contribution via PayPal. Thanks for your consideration.
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.
My Amazon account has been re-instated. I swear I will never try to buy a gift card through them ever again.
Guess what Amazon is currently showing as a potential purchase option for me? Gift cards under $50. @#%^!
Somebody may think being shut out of Amazon for 48 hours is a minor nuisance. I self-published at Amazon for 10 years. Being shut out of my KDP account could have $$$$ ramifications for me if I was still doing that.
I recommend yesterday’s Krugman substack, The Gilded Rage. It’s a talk with Jacob Silverman, who wrote a book by that title. The theme is the anger of the tech bros and the effect it has on the world.
Me, I take some consolation in the fact these idiots re proving the maxim that money doesn’t buy happiness.
I will readily admit that my thinking is likely affected by my love of reading novels, but the whole Erika Kirk – JD Vance thing has a peculiar vibe when considered alongside the recent “IQ test” (aka, cognitive assessment) and MRI revelations. It’s like certain quarters within MAGA are concerned that there’s a chance the next First Lady might be a Hindu.
@Jen: And his puppet master, Thiel, is gay. Why it’s almost like the top Republican pols are putting on some sort of act for the base.
@Kathy: that sea-steading dream of Peter Thiel’s is Island of Doctor Moreau weirdness. I see many opportunities for PIRATES!
Techbros pretty much prove the old adage that, if God had any respect for money, he’d have given it to a better class of people.
@Jen:
Yup, JD will replace Usha with Erika and the MAGAts will celebrate.
Growing up and attending grade school in the 1950s in suburban Rochester, New York (Irondequoit, West Webster) you either loved the New York Yankees or hated them. I was a Brooklyn Dodger fan. I hated them! Between 1948, the year I was born and 1956 the Yankees and Dodgers faced each other in the World Series five times. The Yankees beat out Brooklyn in four of those series. I remember coming home from school to catch the final innings of those games on the radio only to end up hiding in my parents bedroom closet crying my eyes out. In 1955 Walter Alston and the Dodgers prevailed over Casey Stengel and the Damn Yankees to my delight!
When the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles for the 1958 season they broke my ten year old heart. How could they?!?!
Over the years my resentment faded and I started to follow the Dodgers again. Helped along by Kirk Gibson and his Cripple Creek Home Run to win the first game of the 1988 World Series against the Oakland A’s.
But this World Series!
My brother who has lived in Los Angeles and SoCal since the ’70s texted me last night “this looks bad”.
“gotta hang on” I replied.
Then the Dodgers tied the game and took the lead in extra innings.
And they hung on to beat the ‘Jays!
Toronto fans, I feel your pain.
Just not right now!
This is a contrast…
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/sports/article/2025/11/02/maho-bah-villemagne-transgender-boxer-not-many-people-are-concerned-that-i-was-born-female-and-can-get-punched-by-men_6747017_9.html
As long as no penis was harmed!
There are two very interesting things to watch for in polling about Trump: His floor, and his direction. I won’t think he’s in trouble until his 43-45% floor cracks. His floor has not yet cracked, but at the same time, his direction is not good. IOW, he’s holding what he’s got, but not gaining anything.
Nate Silver now has Trump at his most underwater number: 11.2%. This is not a collapse. Nate has his support at 43.1%. This is well down from his post-election 51.6%, and is, if I’m reading the chart correctly, his lowest support number.
Asked about intensity, ie. ‘Strong approval,’ Google AI had this:
Strong approval has dropped, strong disapproval has risen. None of which makes this the ‘collapse’ that liberal YouTubers are constantly touting. But it is slightly more than nothing. So, not a real crack, but maybe a slow leak.
My question has to do with history. A year after Hitler took power, was his approval rising or falling? Same question with Mussolini, Franco, Salazar, et al. We don’t appear to have any real polling. But in the case of Hitler at least the German economy was roaring, which, one could intuit, caused an approval bump. The US economy is not roaring and our wannabe dictator is not strengthening.
Which brings us to the military. I couldn’t find whatever polling Google AI used as a basis for this:
But if we believe that the intensity of his supporters is declining slightly, and if we believe that the intensity of the opposition has not waned, and if we believe that US active duty military is less supportive of the president, it is hard to see how Trump can pull off a successful coup. If the AI stock bubble bursts, if food inflation is rising, if unemployment should rise, Trump will not achieve his goals.
@Michael Reynolds: My fear is that someone has learned the lesson of Reagan. Not Trump, but maybe Vought or Bessent or Heritage. If he has his recession early, he can run on the good feelings of the recovery. Hoover had his depression early, but he did nothing effective to fix it so he was dead meat for Roosevelt. The Fed will do their best to fix what Trump breaks.
@Michael Reynolds:
Trump does seem to repeatedly pull back from the most extreme measures that woul tank the economy on general, though.
He seems to have backed down over China, again.
Which is sensible, but also points out the failure of Trump to create a coalition to curb China without trigeering trade collapse.
He has simply been unable to resist the temptation to kayfabe pose for MAGA, and bully possible allies. Who may concede, from force majeure, but then are unlikey to volunteer to co-operate constructively.
Nations often harbour grudges, and will try to pay them off when opportunity arises.
Diplomacy 101.
The really big question is, when will the AI bubble pop, and how desperate will the tech-bros then become for bail-outs.
“State intervention? It’s just great! Always said so!”