Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Sunday, February 15, 2026
·
15 comments
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.
As predicted.
‘South Texas will never be red again’: Home builders warn GOP over Trump’s immigration raids
Now, of course, homebuilders in Texas are fervent Republican supporters, donating gobs of campaign cash to the party. They are also big employers of immigrants, both legal and illegal. The undocumented immigrants mostly work with the secondary and tertiary employers in construction who don’t have as much political influence.
The south texas Hispanics are primarily cultural conservatives which is why Republicans can get their vote and why they rejected Kamala Harris (they can be just as bigoted against blacks as the rest of Texas). Also, politics is driven by personal connections (think petty local corruption) than by political ideology.
Right now, the South Asian and Islamic immigrants are also getting a taste of the extreme heritage of bigotry in Texas. And despite best efforts by Republican leadership, antisemitism is just roiling under the surface.
It warms the cockles of my cold, dead heart to see that the open bribery on the floor of the Wyoming State Legislature may have been a step too far, even for Republicans. 😉
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2026/02/14/sheriff-investigating-check-passing-incident-in-wyoming-legislature/
Taco: I keep seeing spots and sometimes lines when I close my eyes just for an INSTANT.
Taco Lackey: have you seen a doctor, oh greatest Taco that’s ever lived?
Taco: No, you idiot! Only spots and sometimes lines!!
@Kathy:
Instead of “No, you idiot!” may I suggest “No, you loser!”
@CSK:
Por que no los dos?
Follow up on the SAVE bill.
If passed as currently written, I would be required to repeatedly prove my citizenship each and every time I change the unit I live in within the same apartment building.
Some how repeatedly having to appear in person with the same papers “saves” the United States.
@Scott:
In 1939 following the German invasion of Poland, my grandmother had to flee her home and ended up spending most of her teen years with her mother, father, and younger brother in refugee camps in Hungary among mostly non-Jewish Poles, who as a rule were anti-Semitic AF. Much of her schooling in the camps consisted of makeshift parental co-ops, and one time they got a new teacher who had recently smuggled himself out of Poland. He gave a report on the hardships and atrocities he had witnessed against the Polish people. But, he added, in spite of all that, Poles should be grateful to Hitler because at least he got rid of the Jews of Poland. The teacher said this right in front of my grandmother, whom he didn’t know was Jewish.
@Kathy:
Both would work. But “loser” is Trump’s favored descriptor.
@Bobert: The Founding Fathers wanted to restrict the vote to white men who own property. You moving from one unit to another shows that you cannot be trusted with the vote, and the SAVE Act would save America from you.
Have decades of originalist interpretations at the Supreme Court meant nothing to you?
@Scott:
What are the best efforts of Republican leadership in this case? Is it just attacking criticism of Israel?
I’ve yet to meet a bigot who isn’t either antisemitic or Jewish.
Whether they’re on the left or the right, the one thing Prejudiced-Americans can come together on is that it’s all the fault of the Jews (unless they themselves are Jewish, in which case it might be the fault of some other Jews).
Also, the recent push to conflate any criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism has really allowed antisemitism to flourish on the left because the allegations are just background noise, not a reason to stop and consider whether the allegations might be true. The left, like everywhere else, has always had a problem with antisemitism, but it’s far more prevalent or at least more open.
I blame AIPAC, but then again, so do the antisemites. (shrug-emoji)
@Kylopod:
These episodes remind me of several formative episodes from what passed for my childhood.
Frankly, I’ve never grokked racial and/or religious biases others (including said grandparents’ freaking CHILDREN) expound.
Although fairness compells me to admit to personal bias against sheer stupidity and willful ignorance.
But then again, I am but a simple Luddite.
@Gustopher:
This is nothing new. Maybe I’ve just paid more attention to it as a Jew myself. It has always felt to me like the blind man and the elephant–each side recognizes anti-Semitism on the other side but not on their own side. On the left they just mindlessly chant “stop conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism” and launch it at basically anyone who raises the issue of anti-Semitism in anti-Israel rhetoric; on the right they mindlessly chant “I support Israel” and treat it like a get-out-of-jail free card for the most deranged anti-Semitic rhetoric (it’s what RFK said when called on his claim that Covid was bio-engineered not to attack Ashkenazim and Chinese).
But unquestionably the situation has become turbo-charged since Oct. 7, and especially on the right since Charlie Kirk’s murder, which seems to have provided a new opening for the groypers.
@Kylopod: My local semi-pro newspaper reports the state of FL is pushing a bill to make Oct 14 Charlie Kirk Day. Unclear that they’ll expect to close schools or anything. Seems to me Charlie Kirk is a poor Horst Wessel. But then Horst Wessel wan’t a very good martyr either. To be fair, I guess they get so few conservative martyrs they need to work with what they’ve got.
As seen today at my local megamart
….
Spyte…
Caffeinated chocolate milk…
Ragnarok comes!!!!!
@Flat Earth Luddite:
Mocha?