Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, May 17, 2026
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25 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.
Academics, lawyers. and engineers. Three professions not known for their skills at communicating with average humans. Like, say, voters.
What does our little OTB coterie need? Someone from sales. A person whose livelihood has depended on convincing people without use of either footnotes, citations or equations.
@Michael Reynolds: All comments sections needs fewer weirdos who take comments sections way too seriously and fewer self-impressed blowhards who haven’t ever run a successful campaign anywhere — and who couldn’t be elected dog catcher if they did run –yet are convinced of their imaginary political genius they knew better than to test in the real world.
When the sum total of a D-list kidlit author’s master political salesmanship are lame comments on a somewhat successful political blog that someone else started, it’s time to get over oneself, go outside, and touch grass.
Signed,
A therapist versed in narcissistic traits.
Farmers growing desperate amid rising energy and fertilizer prices (Axios)
Bankrupting oneself into the poor house to own the libs because a trans swimmer tied for 5th place is certainly a choice. I do feel bad for the many in agriculture and in farming communities who did not vote for this.
@Michael Reynolds:
I deal with sales professionals every so often.
What they do not do is wholeheartedly agreeing with their competition that this one, supposedly terrible, little thing that is part of their product is a) actually that meaningful; b) indeed blows absolute ass.
Instead, they tell you that it’s not a biggie, just a small thing that comes with the overall superior package – if they talk about it at all, that is.
Or, in the words of Don Draper: “If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”
If you want to make the point that you want to make, you really need a different analogy.
Here’s some good news: overdose deaths have fallen steadily since 2022 from 108000 (approx) then to 70000 in 2025. I do wonder whether people have gotten smarter or whether the vulnerable ones have been eliminated. Where I live, there are still plenty of people doing the fentanyl stoop.
A vacuum salesman knocks on a door. A potential customer lets them in. There is a possibility of a sale. The customer says, “irregardless of the price you quoted, can I get a discount?” The salesman says, “sure, but just so you know, ‘irregardless’ isn’t a word, you should say, ‘regardless.'”
@DK and @drj don’t understand what just happened. They don’t know the sale is lost, because the consumer needs a vacuum, and it’s a good vacuum, so why wouldn’t the consumer make the purchase?
Of course no salesman would be dumb enough to correct the customer. But, say, a lawyer would be, and then would become outraged at being corrected themselves, thus unintentionally proving my point. See, people don’t like being corrected, isn’t that right kids? When you correct people they become defensive. Isn’t that right, kids? Are you following? Should I slow down?
Wait, you’re not annoyed at my condescension are you? I mean, I still have a vacuum cleaner to sell you. And the fact that I’m treating you like dull children won’t factor into your decision at all. Right?
Just bought. a house and listed our condo. The realtor did a good job getting us the house, saved us 100K. But then, as I was driving her to the title company she revealed she’s an anti-vaxxer. I told her it was bullshit and she quickly retreated.
Logically this has nothing to do with the sale. In fact, she’s exactly the right person to sell the condo now. So. . . we’re going to take it off the market then re-list it later with a different agent. Why? Because I don’t like her.
She’s desperate for a glowing Yelp review. Is she going to get it? No. Even though she saved me 100K. Why? Because I don’t like her.
See, that’s how humans are. Also voters, almost all of them humans.
@Michael Reynolds:
What annoys me is that you argue political strategy based on imaginary scenarios in your head.
AOC is more or less the figurehead of leftie Dems, no?
How many times has she pushed LatinX on us? How many times has she corrected people because they used the word “slave” instead of “enslaved?”
So, instead of making her own points she first has to distance herself from some randos on BlueSky?
Seriously, what is wrong with you? Why do you insist on accepting some stupid Fox News stereotype as representative of progressivism?
(And apart from this, since there is a time and place for everything, I can totally see that sometimes it would make sense to talk about “enslaved” instead of “slaves.” After all, it does reveal a thing or two. It’s pretty childish on your part to want to police this.)
Oh god he’s still at it.
@Michael Reynolds: @DK: Looks like we’re continuing spats from yesterday’s forum. Being an engineer, let me take a shot at salvaging something useful. A few introductory observations. First, Murc’s Law is the widely held fallacy that only Democrats have agency in our politics. A corallary seems to be that if Ds are tagged as X, they must have pushed X. Second, most salespeople are successful because they have a good product to sell. Third, one of the management fads that can be useful is Root Cause Analysis.
LatinX was the example used yesterday. It’s trivia, but to the extent Ds are tagged as pro LatinX, is that because of their vocal support for LatinX, or because GOPs portrayed them as pro-LatinX?
I share your frustration, Michael, in that Ds really do have the better product. Better economic results, diplomatic results, even military results. More Truth, Justice, and the American Way. But Ds seem unable to sell against the lying competition. I assume you’d rather we didn’t lie. I also assume you’d rather we didn’t persecute minorities, including gender.
You get to scratch your pet peeves, I do too. The root cause is branding. (One could go deeper, but not unless I have some time on my hands later.) GOPs, who are the party of the economic elite, have succeeded in branding themselves as the party of real Americans. I’ve never voted for a GOP in my life, and couldn’t tell you in 20 words or less what the Dem brand is. At least not any positive version. My root cause diagnosis is confirmed by surveys finding the word most commonly used to describe Dems is “weak”. Ds have allowed GOPs to define them.
You’re a very good creative, and salesperson, Michael. What’s your advice to anyone with clout who may read this, my favorite blog? How do we salvage the image of the Dem Party. What’s the image, the tribal affiliation, the brand? On a bumper sticker? Quick position statements? And the target audience isn’t OTB commenters, it’s the low info “independents”.
@drj:
Extremely Online Syndrome aka Twitterbrain. Some live in an alternate reality of Elon Musk’s creation, so it’s unsurprising when they start to sound as unhinged as Apartheid Clyde himself. The head-scratching hypocrisy of whining about word policing while policing words is just the iceberg’s tip of the megalomania.
We’ve seen this happen to our elders before with Fox News and with Facebook, and now TikTok, Twitter et al are also sucking a notable minority of screenagers down into the snake pit.
Again, if they were my therapy clts, they’d be prescribed to turn off the phones, go outside, get some sun on their face and some grass on their feet — thus beginning to reorient their starving brains back towards real people and away from Chinese and Russian automated bot farm troll propaganda.
Current polling in key races indicates Dems should stay on how the warmongering Putin-puppet paedofile Trump and his incompetent Rethuglikkklans are destroying the economy and our democratic rights. And not delve into the tangents of the terminally online. The same way a happy couple might cross the street to avoid a dirty unhoused man with with wild hair, tattered clothes, and a matted grey beard yelling “LatinX!” and “Wokeness!!” from the sidewalk beneath a marquee advertising $5.99 gas next to diesel shortages.
@gVOR10:
Is it a spat tho, really? Or are we just reporting to Mom that Dad’s drunk at 10am again?
[*muffled guffaw*] The comic talent around here continues to impress. No cap.
Wow! Discussion of real interesting stuff like pronouns and buzzwords.
In other news, looks like activity ready to heat up elsewhere.
“Wajeeh Lion”
Summarizing:
One of the various situations or theaters mentioned:
Also this, signaling, sending a message:
Looks like some kinetic stuff be happening soon
@charontwo:
This observation might be relevant:
“Wajeeh Lion (different linky)”
Trump is like a little kid who can’t sit still. He gets bored, impatient, playing with his toy soldiers and toy boats.
Are we ready for the $200 oil change? From an internal AutoZone memo:
https://bsky.app/profile/carlquintanilla.bsky.social/post/3mly43udoqk2c
@Mikey: I’m ready for oil shocks to accelerate EV uptake and capital investment, and buildout of supporting infrastructure.
Live by fossil fuels, die by fossil fuels.
Let me defend Mr. Reynolds a bit. The politicians running against Sharia law will not join in doing away with Tennessee’s book banning laws, and I’m sure that they would look favorably on opposing the gains that gay people have made. Logic and reason will not work against them. Some gut issues should be looked for. I’m not hopeful about this; Germans never turned against the Hitler regime and continued to fight when katyushas were in the streets of Berlin.
@DK:
Not in the USA until at least 2029, by which time China and a few other countries will be way, way ahead of the USA in terms of renewables. Trump and the current Republican Congress has set the USA back at least a decade, over the past 18 months, if not more.
@DK: I wish, but I’m sad to say I think @EddieInCA is right. We won’t see any meaningful advancement until the GOP is out of power, and most if not all of it will be playing catch-up. China is going to absolutely eat our lunch on this.
In a saner world, America would be at the forefront of developing EVs and expanding EV infrastructure. But we’re not in that world, we’re in a world where a majority of voting Americans though putting a fascist fraud back in office was a good idea.
Holy shit! This is unbelievable. It’s real, happened at an airshow at Mountain Home AFB.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1tfyi09/mhafb_gunfighter_skies_air_show_crash_video/
@Mikey:
Mountain Home AFB… Isn’t that the one where Qatar is building a training facility and housing planes and personnel?
@Mikey:
Air shows are crash magnets.
Accidents in the 20th century
Accidents in the 21st century
@Kathy:..
My neighbor and a friend of his were killed when his single engine, two seat airplane crashed in northern Illinois on the way to an air show in Wisconsin. He had piloted the plane several times to that air show. He had his own hanger at a small municipal airport in Southern Illinois. Don’t know what makes an airplane an antique but his bird was not new. I like to fly when I’m going somewhere. I once got in the backseat of four seater for the experience. The pilot thought it would be fun to do a loop. When we landed it was all l could do to keep from barfing. My neighbor kept asking me to joyride in his old two seater but I never would.
John Johnson
RIP
That was spectacular, for sure.
Once, at an airshow I was attending, an ultralight doing a stunt routine misjudged his distance to the ground and lawn darted. The pilot was reported in serious condition at a hospital when I left the show, I don’t really know the outcome.
@Kathy:
The day Tex Johnson soiled the pants of the Boeing execs at an airshow…