Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, April 24, 2025
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64 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor 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.
There was an earthquake in Istanbul yesterday. We missed it here in Cappadocia.
We fly home Saturday. Dear Wife and I have enjoyed our trip.
Testing to see if I can post,
Sobering. How the Democratic party’s policy positions are tilted towards the views of white college graduates, away from those of both working class and non-white voters – even though a lot of Democrats are other than white college graduates. Also, how the party is known, its image and reputation.
“Link“
This will be good for morale. Employees spying and whispering on their fellow employees. This administration is becoming more Stalinist everyday. What’s next? Reeducation camps?
Officials launch task force to root out ‘anti-Christian bias’ in VA
@Scott: I have always thought that if your religious preferences make the act of doing your job properly impossible, then you need a different job (or different religious preferences).
@Scott: This sort of thing facilitates/leads to acting on grudges and snitching as office politics. Fun times.
Paula White, head of Trump’s faith office, says God has ordained that women submit to men.
@Tony W: Exactly right. You have a right to your faith but not a right to a job. This concept of “sincerely held religious beliefs” is going to blow up in their faces.
Big Ten universities are developing a “defense compact” akin to NATO to protect themselves from the administration–an attack on one is an attack on all:
Big Ten university faculties push for defense compact against Trump
The proposed NATO-like alliance for the 18 schools would allow them to share resources in case the president targets one of their members.
@CSK:..pastrami, salami, BALONEY!…
Do you think that Paula White will submit to me when I tell her to SHUT THE FUCK UP?
@CSK:..post…
I can see you. The question remains “Can you see your post?”.
@Mister Bluster:
Nah, you’re a heathen.
@Mister Bluster:
Now I can.
@Mister Bluster:
Under almost all circumstances I’d be super pissed to see that. However, I would like to see Paula White or one of these other PUBLIC* “women must submit” women be on tv and have a whole bunch of men just tell her to shut up everytime she opens her mouth. Just rudely and bluntly and say shit like, “We’ll tell you when you’re allowed to speak”. Absolutely grind away at her. Every single time she tries to talk just tell her to shut up.
The most important benefit I see of this is other women can go to their daughters and say, “look, this is what that trad wife shit is like in reality.”
The second most important is to then show their sons and say “Don’t act like those men.”
I think there’s not benefit in humiliating her (or them) just to humiliate them.
*PUBLIC in the sense that they are activist women in power like Paula White or a couple other ones. It absolutely shouldn’t be done to the idiots who have no actual power or platform and more or less choose to live their lives like that. I think it’s stupid and abhorrent, but as long as it’s their choice, I’ll deal. The women in power though, absolutely not.
@Mister Bluster:
Under almost all circumstances I’d be super pissed to see that. However, I would like to see Paula White or one of these other PUBLIC* “women must submit” women be on tv and have a whole bunch of men just tell her to shut up everytime she opens her mouth. Just rudely and bluntly and say shit like, “We’ll tell you when you’re allowed to speak”. Absolutely grind away at her. Every single time she tries to talk just tell her to shut up.
The most important benefit I see of this is other women can go to their daughters and say, “look, this is what that trad wife shit is like in reality.”
The second most important is to then show their sons and say “Don’t act like those men.”
I think there’s not benefit in humiliating her (or them) just to humiliate them.
*PUBLIC in the sense that they are activist women in power like Paula White or a couple other ones. It absolutely shouldn’t be done to the idiots who have no actual power or platform and more or less choose to live their lives like that. I think it’s stupid and abhorrent, but as long as it’s their choice, I’ll deal. The women in power though, absolutely not.
@Mister Bluster:
@Beth:
You don’t tell the hypocrite to STFU. Instead you tell her “You will speak only when spoken to.”
@charontwo:
I can’t fucking stand that guy.
@CSK:
What did she say about Trump being a submissive little bitch for Putin?
I see that Trump asked Putin to stop the war against Ukraine. He said please stop, pretty please, pretty please with sugar on it. This display of Trump’s might will cause the Kremlin to cave real soon.
On the trade war front, Chinese officials say they are not in talks. Another triumph for Trump.
@CSK: Paula White, head of Trump’s faith office, says God has ordained that women submit to men.
She probably sees the Handmaid’s Tale as instruction manual. Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson are role models.
Pew Poll: Trump Underwater with ALL Demographics — Including 45 Point Deficit With Hispanics
@Tony W: Yes! That’s exactly right! (And what I was taught growing up Baptist back in the day, too. Then a bunch of yahus decided that they’d rather rule.)
@CSK: So, when is she stepping down from this role so that she won’t be usurping a leadership position that should be held by a man?
(Yeah, I know…)
@charontwo: The growing political split between college educated and not is always presented as a socioeconomic class thing. It is partly that. But IM not so HO it’s more a matter of education per se. Education makes one more aware of the world and more adept at critical thinking. Note “more”, a tendency, not an absolute. I’ve known a lot of educated people who have chosen to be stone ignorant.
Talking plainly, less educated ~= more gullible. Democrats are the party that actually tries to help the working class: the ACA, the education and health programs that are vital to small towns, the recent doomed bi-partisan border bill, Medicaid expansion, and historically SS and Medicare. GOPs, with nothing else to offer the working class, play to prejudice and resentment. They depend on the gullible to buy their lies. Blood and soil populism is always the easiest thing to sell.
Trans sports seems to be everybody’s example of an issue where Dems are on the wrong side, politically. But Dems weren’t particularly for or against, it was mostly a matter for schools and sports associations. Then GOPs blew it all out of proportion as a culture war wedge issue. What then are Dems to do? Join the witch-hunt? They end up clumsily defending treating people decently and being tarred as perverts for it.
Teixeira talks of climate change being a major issue for the college educated, but not for non-college. Why is that? It’s not because the educated don’t care about working class issues. It’s because climate change, while not being a day-to-day major kitchen table concern is, nonetheless, a freaking important issue and the educated know it.
Teixeira basically talks policy and is advocating what amounts to the median voter theory, come up with bag of policy that appeals to the median voter. That ain’t what the GOPs did to gain success. And almost nobody votes on policy (although they claim to). People vote on perceived tribal affiliation. GOPs build a successful brand/tribe. They identify as The Real Americans. As noted above, it’s really the gullible Americans. Democrats have done a terrible job of building a brand/tribe. I’m a lifelong Dem and I can’t tell you what our brand is supposed to be.
Voters warn Trump: MAGA, but not like this
China says it’s not in trade or economic talks with the US.
The felon rapist lied?
“I am shocked and appalled,” she said deadpan.
Leader veneration will be enforced or the beatings will resume!
@gVOR10:
Really good clarifying post, and I zero in on this:
Amazing how the money-inundated propaganda machinery of the reactionary right, has been able to overwhelm these basic, humane priorities and sets certain groups of people to fretting over trans sports and bathrooms. Really, the undoing of rational society.
@Rob1: Just so everybody here knows, it is always the case that photos of the chain of command are posted on the walls in DoD facilities. Why they were turned around in this case is unknown at this time. It seems very odd, if not a set up.
@CSK: I guess that didn’t apply to her first two husbands.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Apparently not.
Paula White has been married 3 times, just like POTUS! It’s God’s preferred number of marriages among his earthly emissaries.
The many missus White is currently married to a former member of the band Journey, who co-wrote Don’t Stop Believin’.
I will never hear that song the same way again.
@gVOR10:
The question I’d really love Ruy Teixeira is: “What then?”
Set aside that this is a bullshit non-issue and that it’s profoundly stupid (does it mean that I can’t play darts in a bar league? Fantasy Football? Disk Golf?). Let’s just accept the premise, boom, no trans participation in any sports.
What then? Do we get left alone? Do we get supported? Do trans kids get left alone?
Because what I’m positive that Teixeira would then immediately pivot to is that we should be kept out of bathrooms and that kids should be tortured until they turn 18 or 25 before they can get care. Because that’s what this is really about, kicking trans people out of everywhere so that we can be banned and then claimed that we don’t actually exist.
Follow up question, why can people accept that some people are born gay, but can’t accept that some people are born trans?
@gVOR10:
The question I’d really love Ruy Teixeira is: “What then?”
Set aside that this is a bullshit non-issue and that it’s profoundly stupid (does it mean that I can’t play darts in a bar league? Fantasy Football? Disk Golf?). Let’s just accept the premise, boom, no trans participation in any sports.
What then? Do we get left alone? Do we get supported? Do trans kids get left alone?
Because what I’m positive that Teixeira would then immediately pivot to is that we should be kept out of bathrooms and that kids should be tortured until they turn 18 or 25 before they can get care. Because that’s what this is really about, kicking trans people out of everywhere so that we can be banned and then claimed that we don’t actually exist.
Follow up question, why can people accept that some people are born gay, but can’t accept that some people are born trans?
@Steven L. Taylor:
Apparently not.
@Beth:
Ok, so I was about to ask that question over there and decided to look at the comments first. Yeah, fuck that guy. He’s fighting the Democratic Party/Left of his mind. Seeing that he recommends Jesse Singal and Bari Wiess tells me that he definitely wants trans people not to exist. It’s not about sports at all with him. He wants trans people to not exist, he wants to be able to call people racial slurs in the work place. I don’t think he wants to be a Democrat or a “liberal” he wants to be a conservative but the GOP loonies have torched that term.
He’s fundamentally dishonest.
@Beth:
I don’t much like his opinions either, but I think he is pointing the way to, as the topic of another thread just posted has it, Democrats are less popular than Trump.
But yeah, how do you give up on what’s right just because it’s unpopular with less educated or less thoughtful people?
@DK:
And it’s possible there may be some surprise how bad things can get.
Maybe people here remember the supply chain disruptions during COVID. China is the predominant source for several trade items, including refined rare earths and high strength magnets needed in many products – cars, especially EV’s, wind generators, etc. The White House dolt has picked a fight with China the dolt is psychologically incapable of deescalating. Psychologically, the dolt needs to bully people, and he is under the gross misconception that the U.S., not China, has the upper hand. And he is really really stupid, so hard to convince he is wrong about stuff he has convinced himself of.
@gVOR10:
The GOP gets that chasing voters around on policy is a fool’s errand. Voters are often irrational. Witness our sudden reversal on immigration, because we’ve suddenly stopped liking Trump:
Our views are too inconsistent year-to-year — shifting based on vibes and zeitgeist — for Democrats to successfully do what Teixiera wants.
Democrats do have a brand: weakness and inauthenticity. By contrast, Trump Republicans understand that voters reward strength and bluntness.
Many Dems are now weathervanes, offering focused-grouped mush. Instead, they should just unapologetically tell the truth based on what they think is right. At the moment, this realness in persona and policy is what US voters crave.
But our average Dem aspirant will go from endorsing open borders during primaries in a misguided effort to appease activists, to (belatedly) supporting tough enforcement after polling shifts right, to then debating whether to talk immigration at all as a fascist disappears migrants.
All this, just to lose Hispanic male voters anyway. Because nobody respects this kind of nanmby-pamby liberal Romneyism.
How about just staking out positions based on what’s right: of course the border needs to be secured, and of course we’re not going to cripple our economy with mass deportation. Of course we shouldn’t rip families apart and deport law-abiding people who’ve been here decades. Of course we’re going to legalize de facto Americans and only deport criminals.
If some lefty activist or right-leaning indie somewhere doesn’t like that, so be it. If we lose an election until the public inevitably sides with us, so be it. Took Biden too long to make this push, after the inertia that results from trying appeal to, and not offend, the most and least people.
Contrast this with Republicans, wedded doggedly to their position: performative xenophobic cruelty that satisfies their base while allowing Chamber of Commerce predators to retain cheap immigrant. Doesn’t matter how public opinion shifts, conservatives are not going to deviate or have any grand debates.
The right is not going to abandon ship because of a bad debate or bad polls or an insurrection or rape or criminal convictions or a midterm wipeout. If 82-year-old Trump tries for an illegal third term, they’ll back him. This chutzpah is the difference in branding between them and us. And American voters like their guts and despise our weakness.
@charontwo:
All that Beth said.
What I wonder is how energy sources are an issue. Does the average person have any idea where their electricity comes from? Is there any difference in the supply if it comes from coal, oil, hydro, solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, or nuclear?
I bet people care that the service be reliable and affordable.
Yes, solar and wind are intermittent. Hydro can be, too, albeit at longer intervals. That’s why utilities use a mix of sources and not just one. And why they have means for storing power.
I suppose there’s some belief in a nefarious plan to rely only on wind and solar, thus making the electricity supply spotty and more expensive. You’ll have less and pay more. So drill, drill, drill!
This is ridiculous, even before taking into consideration things like air and water pollution, and climate change.
Funny how quiet the 2A folks are lately.
Looks like tyrants are A-OK as long as they go after, you know, those people.
“President voiding citizenship,” “President declaring himself above the law”, and “President ignoring Court orders” were magically not listed on their Pocket Guide to Recognizing Tyranny, likely because the subtitle written in invisible ink was “If the tyrant is a Democrat”.
I have a quote for you, of Lincoln, via Heather Cox Richardson:
Apologies, but a link to the HCR piece is not easily obtained.
@charontwo:
Republicans have to run against specific candidates though. The Democratic brand being in the toilet didn’t help Republicans in the most-expensive-ever state supreme court race out of Wisconsin, last month.
We still haven’t seen many post-mortems explan how this happened in 2024:
In Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin held the US Senate seat for Dems. Trump beat Harris there.
In Arizona, Ruben Gallego won the US Senate seat for Dems. Trump beat Harris.
In NC, Dems won two big statewide races. Josh Stein for governor in a landslide. The NC supreme court seat is about to be called for Dems. But Trump won there.
In Nevada, Democrat Jacky Rosen held her seat. As Trump defeated Harris there.
And of course Democrats somehow picked up a seat in the House.
So is the Democratic brand electorally poisonous but only on the presidential line, or is there a simpler, more uncomfortable explanation for Harris’s underperformance, kin to the now-familiar warnings from the black voters who opposed Biden’s ouster.
Parties should always be recalibrating, even when they win elections. But part of that may be liberals giving up their AOC 2028 or Buttigieg 2028 fever dreams, and just nominating str8 men for a while.
Texiera loves romanticizing the working class. But let’s not forget that Harris’s slippage with black and Hispanic voters was mostly with the men. They were lukewarm on Hillary too. Occam’s razor is telling us something here.
Testing, again.
Per ABC, a judge has blocked Trump’s attempt to prove citizenship in order to vote.
Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers
(I have been chastised in the past for using the word t*st in my comments. So this is not a te*t.)
Next test comment will get the worst grade imaginable
Double post deleted.
@Kathy:
You talkin’ to me?
Coach D tells it like it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI0tm1EaOaU
The rpaist claimed his so called administration did too have discussions/negotiations on trade and economic issues with China.
Either:
1) he’s doubling down on lies
2) he’s mistaken
3) he’s referring to negotiations with the Republic of China
On related matters, the felon denied federal aid to Democrat infested deep blue state Arkansas, after tornadoes killed 40 people and caused a lot of damage.
@CSK:
More like sneaking in a Futurama reference.
Trump on tariffs. Incredible stupidity:
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lnj5ppl62e24
https://bsky.app/profile/dandrezner.bsky.social/post/3lnkmgnrrhc2e
https://bsky.app/profile/dandrezner.bsky.social/post/3lnkq3v4crs2e
There’s no unpacking necessary. Trump floats a giant load of b.s. like he usually does in service of his grift, and his bobblehead followers are fine with the hyperbole, just as long as they feel like winners.
Here is a gift link to the WaPo on rare earths piece:
“Gift”
It’s not just rare earths themselves curbed, exports of high-strength magnets are curbed also.
@charontwo:
It’s related.
High strength permanent magnets are made from rare earth metals.
@Kathy:
I thought that was implied by the word “themselves,” as below:
My bad, assuming casual readers are aware of such context.
ETA: Stocks and bonds up big today, based on happy talk from the Trumpists.
IMO, it remains to be seen if China and Europe are impressed.
Again, Trump “regals” us with his loose handle on the truth, ad infinitum. Seriously, America trusts its economy, its future, in the hands of this personality? Eggs? Pensions? Nukes?
94% eh?
That would be like a high of $100 dozen. The twin plague that is Trump: lies + incompetency.
@Scott: I seem to recall that those portraits were more permanently affixed to the walls.
@Rob1:
Relevant quote:
That was long ago, now with the senility he is even more stupid. Your quote is consistent with severe cognitive impairment, one of many indications.
@charontwo:
My assumption is most people think of rare earths as dirt or clay, not as a mix of compounds that contain metals which can be used to make magnets.
What I like about this post it contains a graphic that contains an expanded version of the periodic table with a separate column for each rare earth element in the lanthanide series of transition elements, the lanthanides coded in a sort of chartreuse color:
“Krugman”
Refining rare earth ores typically produces about 2000 tons of tailings for each ton of metal, so refining is a major issue.
The tailings are often hazardous, and the ores often contain uranium and thorium so radioactive also, the actinides being chemically similar to the lanthanides.
“NBC news”
A little levity to close out the day:
The Mythbusters did a lot of drinking myths, which involved them getting drunk*. Most of these were done during working hours. According to Adam Savage, often this resulted in his being hungover while having dinner with his family.
The things people do for science and a nice paycheck….
*Another tidbit involves the times they drove after drinking. These tests were controlled and had lots of safety measures. Namely they were carried out in closed courses and with police present. Just the same, they couldn’t drive drunk as defined by law, because closed course or not, that’s DUI and illegal.
So in the tests when they drink and drive, they had to make sure the breathalyzer recorded a bit under the legal limit. Otherwise the police who were present would have had to arrest them.
They could, and did, go over the legal limit when driving wasn’t involved. I wonder whether the dinner hangovers were worse then.