Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, May 29, 2025
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58 comments
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.
Trump is said to have been terribly wounded in his amour propre by the description of him as, ‘a short-fingered vulgarian.’ As a writer who occasionally (ahem) indulges in insults, I admire and am jealous of the phrase. It’s wonderfully compact, un-answerable and well-targeted at his sense of social inferiority.
But TACO is every bit as good. Trump Always Chickens Out goes right to what he (and MAGA) see as his bold, strutting manly manliness. And it’s particularly wonderful that it is a bon mot passed around among the investor class. He’s going to have to impose some new tariff craziness in refutation – which may be much harder after the Court of International Trade found – and here I don’t want to get too in-the-weeds in legal jargon – that, ‘you can’t do that you clueless fuckwit.’
I’m starting to come around to the opinion, often expressed here, that Trump is suffering from dementia. A Dr. John Gartner makes a point which I had failed to appreciate:
I wondered whether it was less dementia and more the result of winning uncritical praise from MAGA. If you spend all your time talking to toadies it’s easy to start believing that you don’t need to put any effort at all into communicating. But I had never seen Trump as articulate. I’d never had any interest in him at all, didn’t watch his shows, and assumed he as just another Don King sort of creature. I did not have the same baseline assessment and did not see the degree to which he had deteriorated relative to his earlier baseline.
I still believe endlessly preaching to starry-eyed, brain-dead culties contributes to the problem, but I’m starting to see what others here have been saying for some time. He was always an idiot but I did not appreciate that an idiot can still have dementia and become even more of an idiot.
The NYTimes is reporting that Musk is leaving the administration and that Stephen Millers wife is accompanying him as his private press Secretary. This is feeding long simmering rumors that *extended gagging* she wants to bear Musk more babies and that *unbearable dry heaving* the Millers and Musk are a throuple.
@Michael Reynolds: I fear the TACO thing will goad Trump into doing something stupid. But he was going to do stupid stuff anyway, so it’s an acceptable risk.
@Neil Hudelson:
HA. I find this amusing as Musk rather famously has stated that he thinks PR work is useless (I’m in PR and obviously find this opinion rather grating). Clearly, someone has learned that CEO reputation can have a rather direct impact on company earnings–something that even the most entry-level PR person could have told him.
@Michael Reynolds: That comparison of how Trump used to sound vs. what he sounds like now has always struck me as the key indicator that something’s not right. The difference is astonishing.
@Michael Reynolds:
Ron Reagan says he noticed something off with his dad as early as 1984, his dad was not diagnosed until 1994. The diseases can sometimes take awhile to become obvious.
@Jen:
Among many other indications. His vocabulary is noticeably diminished, he has a few favorite words he relies on e.g., big, beautiful, strong, nice, nasty.
People keep explaining this away as lifts in his shoes, but it is a symptom of a particular form of frontotemporal dementia:
“Stance“
@Neil Hudelson: I stumbled on a thread on Bluesky this morning about precisely that throuple rumor and yeah, not a good visual to start the day. Not a knock against the practice at all, but rather these horrible grotesque people. Anyway, according to this thread, Miller supposedly bragged that he was using his wife as a honeypot for Musk but guess that didn’t work out so well for him in the end. I’ve naturally made zero attempt to do any fact-checking on this because eww.
@LongtimeListener:
Very wise because somewhere out there someone has no doubt created some AI art you might stumble across.
@Michael Reynolds:
I agree with you, but I have one caveat. I think it’s eminently possible that Trump saw how well witless babble worked for Sarah Palin, and took a lesson from her.
The phrase “short-fingered vulgarian” has been driving him crazy since Spy magazine coined it in 1986.
@LongtimeListener:
Great thread on Bluesky, thanks for the link.
@charontwo:
Trump’s always had lousy posture. Back in the early 1990s, Marla Maples told him it “sucked.” Her word.
Moving forward, all mention of Stephen Miller must refer to him as “Naziferatu.”
Used in a sentence:
I swear to God, if naziferatu’s wife is leaving him to go be a sister womb at the commune of the chief south african dweeb, I may have to start going to church again.
@Neil Hudelson:
Come now. Nature demands even vermin be able to reproduce, disgusting as that might be.
@CSK:
Well, he has a point.
Short fingered taco is more accurate.
@Neil Hudelson: Wait. Or does that mean that Miller is a cuck?
@Gavin: Applauso!
@Michael Reynolds:
Same. I did watch maybe 2-3 episodes of The Apprentice and came to the conclusion that his decisions for who got fired were completely arbitrary. His reasoning didn’t seem to make sense, so he was either way ahead of me, or way behind.
I’d be interested in seeing some old clip of him being truly articulate, but am not interested enough to actually do a Google search.
Would Trump exclude/deport an Einstein, Fermi, Szilard, Gamow, Bethe if he had such powers in the 1930s?
Disaster-Struck States Waiting for Weeks for Trump’s Sign-Off on FEMA Aid (Scientific American)
Funny. President Biden’s mind and heart were both working well enough to approve red state disaster aid, without delay.
In a rare moment of campaign trail candor last year, Epstein-bestie rapist Trump told his cult, “I don’t care about you, I just want your vote.” There is a lesson here for the Republican voters of disaster-stricken states like N. Carolina, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Missouri.
Republican wants FEMA help after voting to cut funding (Newsweek)
It’s always socialism-for-me, but not for thee with these rightwing frauds. Hawley belongs to a party that claims deficits demand massive cuts to healthcare, disaster/food/housing and tens of thousands of jobs — while also pushing a Big Ugly Bill with $4 trillion yearly deficits, thanks to corporate welfare and tax cuts for billionaires. Conservative economics is still a corrupt scam.
@Slugger: Yes, Trump would deport the leading physicists, or maybe the climatologists. For Hitler it was “Jewish physics”. For Trump it’s woke physics, or climatology. In any case, experts can’t be allowed to challenge dear leader’s kayfabe.
From the WaPo, via Raw Story, comes an interesting disquisition on Trump’s use of the word “beautiful”:
http://www.rawstory.com/big-beautiful-bill-verbal-tic/
Methinks that is the federal government isn’t going to provide the necessary services and all of that is going back to the states, then there’s no reason to pay federal taxes anymore. I’d rather send my tax money to Illinois and get actual services rather than sending it to the federal government who are using it for tax cuts for billionaires.
@Grumpy realist: Congratulations, you get it.
@Fortune:
lol. You don’t dweeb.
Re yesterday’s discussion of messaging v fundamentals, let me note that this chart of major donors is the big problem. (Via Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice.) And this doesn’t show dark money. I guess money should count as a fundamental, despite the Supremos saying it’s speech.
@Fortune: of course, this is ridiculously inefficient due to the duplication in each state of the necessary bureaucracy and back/ front office services, especially for services that should be nation wide such as payment of social security payments, but you’re willing to pay for that, right?
@Grumpy realist:
I worry that lots won’t go to the states because the individual states can’t afford them. Other than California, western states can’t afford the fire-fighting fleet for the national forests. None of them individually can afford something like NIST’s lab in Boulder, CO that does the foundational work on timekeeping accurate enough for GPS. In some cases multiple states might be able to do the job. Eg, a compact among western states might handle the fire-fighting as a shared resource.
What they NY Times is artfully not using in their article about Musk is “Special Government Employee” which comes with a limit of 130 days of service. Odd for five supposed ‘elite’ NYT “journalists not to have stumbled across this. But then they are building a narrative and the truth is inconvenient.
Here we have a chronology by someone who was actually a DOGE employee of their time in service.
@JKB:
In the dueling stories about who crashed the Wienermobile, you are believing the guy dressed as a hot dog.
Amazing.
Surprise!
The MAHA Report Cites Studies That Don’t Exist
@Michael Cain: @Grumpy Realist: Our founders wanted the federal government to do only those things which only it could, and leave the rest to the state and local governments. We should get back to federalism.
@Fortune: the problem now is that the federal government is refusing to do those “things that only the government can do.” So I don’t see why we should allow them a) money to cover the services they’re shirking, or b) allow them to have authority in the area. You want to invoke the Dormant Commerce Clause? Fine. But it should get put into play not just when there are no federal laws, but when the feds refuse to implement the federal laws that already exist. The FDA and the NIH not providing accurate information or funds for getting lead out of water? Then they get no money and lose the right to create policy.
@Fortune: Breaking apart the purchasing power of a single entity and distributing it to 50 states is not efficient, and will not save money. This will be come very evident in coming months, if any coastal states sustain a direct hit from a hurricane–for just one example.
There are some things that make sense to leave to states. There are some things that are far better administered at the federal level. This isn’t–or shouldn’t be–a one-size-fits-all situation. “Our founders” could not have envisioned the world we live in now, and reverting to that phrase/trope is not helpful, useful, or really even applicable.
We should get back to federalism.
Damn straight! And lets go back to allowing only white, male, property owners the vote.
@Mister Bluster: I’m not calling for vote restriction or slavery, just federalism and whale oil lamps.
@DK: Perfect county for some road posters to go up showing post and pre storm aerial footage of the county with the caption—we could be back to this but Trump bought his crypto coin with your cleanup money.
@Grumpy Realist: “Efficiency” for thee but not for me
@Jen:
The last time “it was left to the states,” netted over one million deaths from the trump virus.
Learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
This time it won’t be as successful, but the economic damage will be spectacular. El Taco has the biggest economic damage, many economists say that.
@Fortune: Moses, the founder of Judeo-Christian values, sentenced a man who gathered wood on the Sabbath to death by stoning.
Do we need to get back to that as well?
We have Federalism—a 20th century version of it. God willing—we will build the 21st century version of it after post-Trump reckoning
@Jim X 32: Demonstrate to me why federalism requires stoning those who gather wood on the Sabbath and I’ll answer you.
ETA – You added to your comment so mine doesn’t apply as well. Interesting. If anyone’s interested, consider Jim’s comment without the last two sentences. Also, what’s the difference between 20th and 21st century federalism, and why would we want any federalism if it’s the same thing as killing people for breaking the Sabbath laws, voting restrictions, and covid deaths? And why didn’t we have 21st century federalism already? Did you just throw that phrase together because my comment exposed the fallacy in your comment?
Take care, peeps. There’s no point in visiting this conversation again today. Buh-bye.
@just nutha:
The conversation on this thread was great…up to a certain point.
@Scott:
I’m more concerned that funding was pulled for an mRNA bird flu vaccine.
Flu vaccines are relatively easy to make using older techniques, but not as quickly as mRNA shots. For one thing, chicken embryos are required, which slows the process down some. But this also slows down further developments of new vaccine technologies
At this time I remind everyone that the US is not the only country in the world. Bird flu is not currently a problem in most other countries, but it could be if the H5N1 virus jumps to humans and begins person to person transmission. So I hope some other country takes up the task, even if it means financing Moderna to do it.
@just nutha: I liked the part where we were talking policy.
@Fortune: So you hate America? Got it.
We fought a war over States’ Rights, and the states lost. We passed the Reconstruction Amendments that fundamentally altered the relationship between the states and the federal government.
For the entire time that any of us have been alive (and certainly since the civil rights acts made the former-slave states attempt to live up to the promises of the equal protections clause) America has had a very strong federal government, and relatively weak state governments.
When you talk about the founders, you elide over the fact that they didn’t even want a Bill of Rights, and that their work has been substantially rewritten over the centuries. (Also that they were a bunch of shitheads who ran work-camps, raped the slaves in those camps, carried out genocide against the indigenous populations, and smelled bad)
Your founder’s vision of America failed spectacularly, and had to be duct-taped together about 150 years ago, with periodic new levels of duct tape added with labels such as “yes, we fucking meant that when we wrote the Reconstruction Amendments you fucking meathead.”
The folks who wrote the 14th Amendment have as much impact on your day to day life as the folks who wrote Article 1. That’s America, you fucking meathead, and that’s what you and your Republican friends hate.
@Kathy: it’s going to be Dolly Parton again, isn’t it? She’s going to save us all.
I’m still waiting for the tens to hundreds of millions of people to drop dead from COVID vaccines.
Bird flu has such a potential to kill people that even if there were safety problems with mRNA-based vaccines (obviously not in the millions dead, as we would have seen that), it would be worth developing the vaccines to have a less-worse option than letting something with a 10-40% fatality rate go wild.
I do think bird flu is likely less lethal than a lot of the estimates, as we aren’t seeing a lot of dead dairy and farm workers. And it’s likely that the number of cases is underreported.
It’s really deadly in mink, seals and cats, and we see that. It’s less deadly in cows, as our dairy herds are infected and we aren’t having mass die-offs there. I think we are going to be closer to cows than cats.
Meanwhile, RFKJr doesn’t believe in germ theory.
@Mister Bluster:
I agree with this. I’ve often described my politics as liberal federalism and scolded my lefty friends: except where Americans’ protected federal rights are abridged, we should stop trying to oppose will on red jurisdictions. 9 of the 10 poorest states and ~95 of the 100 poorest counties are Republican. If they like suffering, so be it.
The issue with federalism is that conservatives don’t really support it in as claimed. Just like their fake opposition to socialism and deficits.
The right opposes socialism that benefits those they hate, especially blacks and students; but they love stealing Cali’s and NewY’s money for giveaways to white farmers and corporate welfare queens.
Republicans hate deficits only as an excuse to gut benefits to the poor; they love $4 trillion yearly deficits via the Big Ugly Bill’s tax breaks for billionaires.
Conservatives are all for federalism, local control, and the narrowest possible readings of enumerated powers til it’s time to leave blue jurisdictions alone to set our own climate policy or determinations on who belongs to a “well regulated militia.” Local control is suddenly anathema when Dems agree with Trump 2016 on leaving schools, parents, and businesses alone to decide trans policy vs politicians playing genitalia cop and potty police.
Book bans also seem to violate the spirit, if not the letter, of federalist thought. So does banning Pride flags. There’s nothing federalist about White House Nazis or Supreme Court hacks bullying entities who know diversity and DEI are strengths.
The US Constitution gives the feds broad power to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and support the general welfare. No state can abridge federal rights.
But beyond that, I largely agree with conservatives on federalism. Problem is, they don’t agree with themselves. That’s why Republicans vote to gut FEMA then come begging for FEMA money. Clowns.
@Kathy: Pulling the money from Moderna’s development process is frustrating and, frankly, dumb. Not only does that mean that the money that was already spent was basically wasted, it puts us far behind if bird flu ever reaches a pandemic status. So, so dumb.
Hmmm. Musk has informed residents of his SpaceX Texas town, Starbase (formerly known as Boca Chica Village), that they may not be allowed to continue using their property as they have in the past.
I thought a man’s home was his castle. Guess not, if Elon wants it for his own purposes.
@Gustopher:
It’s not very deadly as it exists now. Who knows what happens if it mutates to take advantage of H. sapiens’ very large numbers.
It gets very complicated, even that a vaccine for the current strain may not protect as well for a future, yet to develop strain (see the trump pandemic, it was only 5 million years ago in our collective memory).
I do recommend taking a flu shot every year, regardless of overall risk or state of health. The more active B and T cells against flu strains you have, the better.
On the bright side, there are antiviral treatments for flu, which seem to work with varying strains. one reason the swine flu pandemic of 2009 wasn’t as bad, was the stockpiles of Tamiflu kept in case of a bird flu outbreak. It proved effective against the H1N1 of 09.
@Jen:
I hope BioNTech takes it up. That’s a German company (founded by Turkish immigrants). If H5N1 goes pandemic, Europe won’t be spared.
Judge Allison Burroughs has extended the order preventing Trump from blocking foreign students from Harvard.
@just nutha:
I’ve been meaning to post what I intend to do on my second iteration of potato croquettes, but I’m not sure I’ll get the chance to make them this weekend. Last weekend I barely managed to make picadillo and rice on Sunday, before I had to get back to the hospital with something or other.
And even if I get time*, I may have to choose between the croquettes, or ice cream. I also haven’t made up my mind which I want anyway…
*The are they have my mom in allows only two people to visit at a time. Weekends the grandkids, cousins, and friends tend to come visit. I figure I can wait my turn while cooking at home as well as by sitting in the waiting room.
I expected some brain drain as soon as El Taco was elected, but I didn’t think many doctors would be involved in that. Then Junior and his worm got named to head the HHS…
So now the fact that American doctors are fleeing in larger numbers to Canada, doesn’t surprise me at all.
Oh, Federalism. Now there is a new idea that no one has ever raised.
Can anyone here knowledgeable of history cite an instance of a society flourishing by reversing economic integration?
It’s almost as if 18th century intellectuals had trouble seeing what technological advances would come over the course of the next 250 years.
Should we return to bloodletting, too? Wait a minute. Shit, don’t answer that.
@Kathy:
You got at all wrong. That’s a good thing. The doctors who leave for Canada are all woke, DEI doctors.
We want the very best here – the former gunners who overestimated their abilities and didn’t get that plastics fellowship. We need them to open concierge practices for bougies and old money. That’s the kind of medical professional we love in America.
@Kurtz: At least you put in a little effort to make an argument before “this other thing is old too and it’s bad”. But federalism doesn’t necessarily oppose economic integration.
@Fortune: There’s going to have to come a time where you actually decide if you want a federal government who provides services WE ALL USE, including you, or if you seriously want all that to be decided by 50 DIFFERENT states. It’s not just Medicaid, or Medicare, or Social Security, it’s TRANSPORTATION, as a whole. It’s Infrastructure, as a whole. It’s staying in front of diseases that can kill humans or valuable livestock, as a whole.
It appears you’re good with bad roads, no healthcare, no retirement, and bad water. So that’s on you, I guess. Because these are all things the federal government does, plus a lot more.
@Fortune: OMG, Beth has had you pegged all along. You really are a dweeb— a 10th grade debate student would have gotten the analogy. Anyhoo, as always the joke is on you—again. LOLZ
Breaking news: Proof of El Taco direct from the White House