Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, April 8, 2025
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80 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.
It was a predictable next step after detaining green card holders, but here’s an early example of a US citizen being detained at a border entry for incorrect politics.
Lawyer for U-M protester detained at airport after spring break trip with family
Seems he was ultimately able to use his lawyer skills to talk his way out but not without giving CPB access to his contacts list.
I’m not a lawyer but have an upcoming trip with family overseas so I’ve gotta figure out how to temp clear my phone prior to re-entry (trying to avoid burner phone route as I’ll actually need a lot of what I can only access easily though my main). Maybe as simple as doing backup to cloud and hitting factory reset before hitting customs?
Port fees on Chinese made shipping:
“Twitter” Thread:
If this happens, the fees would be another sales tax on consumers, also the costs of trucking stuff around.
Yarvin yammers yarns, markets yelp, Trump yawns.
I find it hard to imagine anyone actually building new shipyards in U.S., considering this, and also considering maybe this policy does not outlast the Trump administration.
@charontwo: Makes you wonder when the Soviet-style Five Year Plan will be published. Another total flipflop from the Republican Party of yore: a command control economy. Because that worked so well for Stalin and Mao.
What a difference 6 months and a new Adminstration makes.
Only 6 months ago, a series of reports:
Or —- How Trump took the nation down the down the up staircase.
For those who missed it, yesterday’s xkcd comic skewers the stupidity of the Trump tariffs in classic fashion. I was amused that Munroe used almost the same analogy that my wife came up with — hers was our family balance of trade with the grocery store…
@charontwo:
otoh, I can imagine Japanese, South Korean, Italian and German shipbuilders cracking open the champagne over this particular wheeze.
@DrDaveT:
Thanks for that.
I needed the chuckle.
And also it’s a brilliant summary of the principle of free exchange.
@charontwo: Especially considering most of the big shipping companies view the ships as essentially disposable. Run the ship with poor maintenance until it can’t run anymore then abandon it and the shell company that “owns” it. Sucks for the crew but who cares about them…
@JohnSF:
Singapore builds ships too.
While I was working in Malaysia, back in the 1980’s, the Malaysians had just opened their shipyard in Johor.
One more piece of evidence for the “Donald Trump is a moron” file.
Trump demands EU purchase $350 billion p.a. in oil and gas to close the trade deficit.
Setting aside the visible goods trade deficit is actually only $115 billion, and a little under $50 billion if you count services trade.
That amount is quadruple what the EU purchased from the US in 2024; and most the total imports value of $410 billion.
The EU would have to shut down almost all imports from the Middle East, North Africa AND Norway to do this.
It’s simply not possible because of the oil type mix the refineries require.
And because Norway is part of the EEA Single Market, even though its outside the EU.
And the Algerian gas pipelines feed direct into Spain and Italy, which requires that gas.
Also, iirc the US east coast oil and lng terminals are pretty much maxed out already.
And this is why the Crow & Leo court is losing all legitimacy: US supreme court (sic) allows deportations under 18th-century law with limits
Being another creature of Silicon Valley, I first read Yarvin a dozen years ago, if not more.
At the time, I decided that nobody who was the slightest bit serious would pay any attention to him.
Another thing I was wrong about, it seems.
Mencius Moldbug is an exercise in hyperbolic rhetoric. It seems we live in a time of hyperbolic rhetoric, so his day has come. It will go when we tire of the hyperbolic rhetoric. I think that is inevitable, but I make no prediction of when.
You remind me of an article from The Guardian I had intended to mention, Rightwing group backed by Koch and Leo sues to stop Trump tariffs. I’ve been sort of hoping the inherent contradictions between their plutocrat funders and populist voter base might cause conflict. More likely Koch, Ackman, Musk etc. will get Trump to back off, but one can always hope for bloodshed.
A long analysis of Latinos for Trump. The conclusion seems to be that Latinos are often insecure about their identity as Americans. So Trump’s attacks caused many Latinos to lean into Trump’s crude nativism.
It seems Latinos don’t necessarily think of themselves as Latinos, that Latino identity is plural not singular, too varied and complex to be treated as a voting bloc. IOW, Cuban-Americans, Venezuelan-Americans and Argentinian-Americans are not all Mexican-Americans, and not all Mexican-Americans even identify with other Mexican-Americans.
Trump managed to split Latinos because ‘Latino’ is just a convenient parenthesis around a group that isn’t really a group. Latinos, in addition to not necessarily GAF about other Latinos, don’t fit into one of the key alliances Democrats assumed existed:
When I first heard the term intersectionality, I laughed because I thought it was obvious nonsense. But Democrats bought in on the basis of assumptions predicated on the notion that anyone who was not White, Cis, Straight, etc…, would be natural allies. People of Color. Again, obvious nonsense. Black and Latino are not natural allies. Asian and gay are not natural allies. Even gay and trans have issues with each other. And to complicate the picture further, Latinos and Latinos are not necessarily allies. Ditto every other identity group including White, Cis and Straight.
Intersectionality is based on a provably false premise, that every identity group will define itself in opposition to the White-Cis-Straight majority identity. And that is just not how people think.
Mexican, Salvadoran, Columbian, Cuban Americans do not automatically see themselves as oppressed and therefore natural allies of other ‘oppressed’ groups. But every single one of them hates inflation. And they hate corruption. And they at very least distrust our billionaire oligarchs.
Ideas unite, identity divides. Identity draws lines, ideas cross those lines. As hard as it is for Democrats to accept it, in this last election it was the MAGAts who had unifying ideas. Bad ideas, stupid ideas, but ideas, goals, things they hoped to actually do. Do, not be.
Democrats relied on identity, on voting blocs that do not exist – aside from the voting bloc of Black women. The women’s vote. The Latino vote. The LGBTQ vote. The youth vote. The unifying theme was meant to be, what exactly? What issue? What great cause? Where did we propose to drive our busload of diversity? We need to stop reassuring ourselves that, ‘it’s OK, we only lost X percent of X minority.’ The thing is, we lost those voters to a rapist pig.
We need to work on ideas. We need a narrative about a future built not on what was, but on what is. And we need to stop worrying about who we are, and imagine what we will do.
Cat Fight!
Elon Musk calls Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro ‘a moron’ amid tariff infighting
@Scott:
Has anyone seen how much stainless steel the chief nazi uses for his Xtarxhips and Xybertrucks? Does he welcome a 25% tariff on imported steel that will drive up prices for all steel?
@JohnSF:
Or else what? What is the threat?
ETA: roughly 17 MM BPD equivalent, that approaches total U.S. oil production. Does the U.S. have the capability to export that much? What about commitments to U.S. refiners and other consumers?
Boy be cray-cray.
@Michael Reynolds:
I want to say, “that’s not what intersectionality means”. But of course, it means that to somebody. In point of fact, it was invented to describe the situation of black women, who are both black and women, members of more than one oppressed group, sitting in the intersection (in the Venn diagram!) of both of those groups.
And it is often used as a reminder that it isn’t that easy to ally with people in different demographic groups. But of course, terminology that is powerful often gets adopted and distorted.
In my world, that happened to the word, “hacker”.
@Jay L Gischer:
I heard about intersectionality from my trans daughter. Whatever the historical antecedents, she understood it to mean an alliance of different minorities, each supporting the other. I’ve seen Beth use it that way, too.
This is what AI has to say, and we know AI is never, ever wrong:
Christian nationalist pastor Andrew Isker claims that the scanners at airports turn straight men gay.
http://www.rawstory.com/christian-nationalist-2671695120/
So, how about if instead of tariffs, the countries affected by the felon’s tariffs simply ban the import of certain US made products?
I’m not saying tweak laws, like banning the use of some additive or ingredient used in US products (which is already a thing in some places) so such products can’t be imported for sale. But rather simply state a list of products made or grown in America can’t be imported.
You know: sanctions.
Yeah, there are a lot of reasons not to. There will be adverse consequences. But in a traed war, as in any kind of war, once hostilities get started there are no good options. every response, or lack of response, carries massive downsides.
Can anyone explain why a VAT (value added tax) that is applies to all goods and is independant of importation (and blind to country of origin) is a trade barrier?
Example: Madagascar imposes a 20% import duty on imported vanilla to protect the vanilla farmers of Madagascar. But apparently because Madagascar collects a 20% VAT at the grocery stores for either domestic or imported vanilla, the Trump administration considers the VAT a trade barrier.
Your daily reminder that all conservatives are by definition disingenuous bad-faith hacks.
Conservatives feel they are being oppressed when they are not allowed to oppress others, they feel silenced when they cannot silence others, they feel “cancelled” when they cannot “cancel” others.
Much of the discussion about colleges boils down to: Conservatives just hate intellectuals, the end.
Right-wing whining about cancel culture has always been hypocrisy — they have no worries about cancelling the left, and in fact think that a failure to do so in the past was a great error that must now be corrected, with violence for fun. And it’s not hypocrisy for RWers — when your organizing principle is Wilhoit’s Law, the out-group has no rights the in-group must respect.
As a famous T-shirt said, “F YOUR feelings, not MY feelings.”
And remember:
Fairness is when someone I don’t like is held accountable.
Cancel culture is when someone I do like is held accountable.
@Kathy:
It’s already done. For example, the EU is closed to American meat and dairy because they do not conform to EU requirements.
On a completely different topic, I had what might (or might not) be an insight. Hollywood believes it needs IP – IP being short-hand for books, comics or earlier movies/TV shows. I think that’s at least partly wrong. I think people are looking for continuity, not just familiarity.
In the book world people either prefer stand-alones (what we call single titles) or they like series. I’m a series guy, I read them and I write them. A stand-alone is basically a date. It’s one night out. A series is a long-term relationship. (LTR).
Snow White was never going to be a LTR. The Last Unicorn was never going to be a LTR. Minecraft? LTR. Dune? LTR. Working Man? Not technically a LTR, but in effect, part of a Statham extended universe, itself a LTR. Mickey 17? Nope. Barbie? Will absolutely be a LTR, the sequels are a comin’. And Captain America: BNW didn’t feel like a LTR going forward, but like the trailing edge of a busted up LTR with Marvel.
Obviously I’m not claiming this is the answer to all questions, but TV now sets the pace, and TV? All about the LTR. There’s a reason good shows like Friends and lousy shows like Big Bang Theory, are worth billions. You don’t just see Rachel and Chandler, you live with them. They’re right next door.
A lot of people want not just an experience but a lifestyle. So, my hypothesis is that if Hollywood produces good movies that feel as if they might become a LTR, I believe they will outperform equally good, or even superior, stand-alones.
@Kathy:
I had the thought yesterday, that China should immediately cut off exports to the US until the nonsense stops. No other country could do that, but Xi could.
@CSK: Soon to be accused of sexual abuse of minors.
How do you know that you are driving in the south? The first billboard says Jesus Saves, the second says Adult Superstore next exit. No word on what Jesus saves on there.
@charontwo: Or is trying to create “drill baby, drill.”
@Rob1:
Your link quotes Moldbug:
I note two things.
First, he doesn’t provide the etymology for “executive” itself. He relies on the etymology of a ‘literal’ synonym. Unfortunately for this ‘philosopher’, merely adding a modifier does not strengthen the argument, nor does it justify providing the etymology of the synonym rather than the actual title.
He is employing a grade school definition of synonym. In reality, ahem, if English is English, and this person actually has an actual understanding of linguistics, then it is obvious that this is either a deliberate sleight of hand, or this person is a charlatan. Most synonyms are close, but not identical in meaning. They can be interchanged in most situations, but not all. They retain some distinctions of meaning.
Moreover, the Founders specifically wrote the Constitution as a different model of government opposed to monarchy, not to create a different type of it. They understood the difference between the words executive and monarch.
Second, the power of a CEO is often restricted by the organizational structure. A CEO has significant power within an organization, but is often subject to the decisions of a board of directors.
Organizations have other executives. Are they all monarchs? Can one organization of more than one monarch? As Moldbug points out, mono means one. Is English English?
I could keep going. But, why? It’s obvious this person is a fake—dubbed a philosopher by a kingmaker who has no business holding a sword. He is a philosopher in the same sense that Ayn Rand was a philosopher. Given that description by people looking to elevate themselves via endorsement from someone who emits a whiff of intellectualism.
Trump wants to burn America to the ground. Literally.
Trump Said Cuts Wouldn’t Affect Public Safety. Then He Fired Hundreds of Workers Who Help Fight Wildfires.
@CSK: Growing up, we were taught that cancer was punishment from God for having “abused the temple” (body, usually by smoking). Until the president of our denomination was diagnosed with it. Then it became a phenomenon that humans can’t understand. Fundies have always believed weird stuff.
@Sleeping Dog:
A similar thought: Canada sends letters to all hospitals and nursing homes in New York, Michigan and Minnesota, etc reminding them that they should make sure that their emergency electrical system is in good working order.
@Kurtz:
…and there’s a good reason for that! “Executive” is from the Latin ex equi, the one who follows after and implements the orders of another. A literal executive does not originate orders; he carries them out.
Our Founding Fathers, being better educated in Latin than Moldbug, knew this perfectly well. The Executive branch implements the will of the Congress (and thus of the People). Otherwise, they would have given it a different name.
@Bobert:
Your statement already contains the why. The administration has constructed its reality to perceive VAT as a trade barrier.
Postmodernism rocks!
@charontwo:
I had that in mind when I said not to tweak laws. It’s a matter of different food safety standards. The hormones fed to cows and the chlorine wash for poultry, are not proven safe by EU standards. That’s why they can’t be imported.
@just nutha:
Appreciate the reply, but would another administration consider Madagascar ‘s VAT a trade barrier?
@Michael Reynolds: Yeah, that’s where I suspected you heard it from. I have read a lot of feminist blogs over the years, and there is a wide variation in how they use the word.
But even those who understand it as it originally was meant don’t tend to explain it in day-to-day discourse.
From Kimberle Crenshaw’s Wikipedia page – slightly better than an AI:
The payoff for some white feminists was that they shouldn’t just assume whatever they thought was best would be best for black women, too. Trans women are by nature intersectional, as well.
And yes, they should be seeking alliances. They should not expect (as we white people so often do) that everybody else will see the world and what to do about it exactly the way we do. Making those alliances takes a lot of work in the trenches. Slow, patient, determined work.
And I’ve seen “intersectionality” used to denote that.
However, I agree that just assuming that Latinos would be against Trump could have been predicted to have poor outcomes, and did have poor outcomes. Because we white people can be kind of dumb like that.
Interestingly enough, California Latinos are pretty strongly Democratic. We can thank Pete Wilson and the anti-immigrant fever in the 90’s for that. It helps that a strong majority of those living here like and value the cosmopolitan nature of the state. It has been that way at least since the Gold Rush, and seems unlikely to change.
@Sleeping Dog:
Such an action would be worth trillions for those with the foresight to have invested in popcorn futures.
@Scott:
Oh, doubtless.
@just nutha:
I can imagine the punishment for masturbating. Yikes.
China could begin to simply slow down exports under existing rules, and create a supply chain bottleneck, and we can predict the results. I live on a rock in the Pacific Ocean, everything is shipped here. I’m expecting my expenses to go up significantly.
@Kurtz:
@DrDaveT:
You both have identified key flaws in this argument (?). Nevertheless, in the interest of piling on, I will also note the etymological fallacy. Which isn’t to say that etymology doesn’t matter, but rather that it is not the mic drop that many people fancy it to be.
@DrDaveT:
Hence Wiktionary’s definition of “executive officer”’
The commander decides what to do. The XO’s job is to see that it’s done.
@DrDaveT:
Hence Wiktionary’s definition of “executive officer”’
The commander decides what to do. The XO’s job is to see that it’s done.
@DrDaveT:
Hence Wiktionary’s definition of “executive officer”’
The commander decides what to do. The XO’s job is to see that it’s done.
@LongtimeListener:
Don’t update to the cloud. Get a terabyte USB stick and backup your phone to that before the factory reset. Let a family member hold the USB stick when entering the U.S. They can search your phone and accounts to their black hearts’ content and won’t find a thing.
@Michael Reynolds:
I hope so.
The latest Ancient Geeks got me thinking about the Star Wars movies. One criticism of The Force awakens was “Episode IV for Millennials.” One can think of The last Jedi as “Episode V with better side action,” and The Rise of Skywalker as “Episode VI for Millennials.”
Solo and Rogue One were not great movies, but at least they were different movies. Same for The Mandalorian and Andor. Both keep some relation and continuity with the movies, but are different stories, not just more of the same.
That said, there’s what happened when I saw the movie based on Tom Clancy’s Clear and Present Danger. There’s a scene where the freelance Cuban spy, Cortez, working for the Colombian cartels kills his unwitting source, the FBI Director’s secretary. This was not only unnecessary melodrama, it was a stupid move and contrary to the source material; not to mention it reduced Cortez to a generic stock bad guy.
Ah, but I happened to overhear one of the couple sitting next to me say “She knew too much,” and saw the other person nod. People want the cliche.
I sometimes call it the Brain’s Broadway Principle: When I said I wanted something new and different, I meant different enough so we don’t get sued.
@Michael Reynolds:
No, MR, Jay is absolutely correct about the origin of intersectionality; but, just like “woke” and “CRT,” the evil Black Hearts have transformed it into a weapon against those it was meant to define. FTMFRs.
@DrDaveT:
Thank you. I initially was going to do that in my post, but I got lazy. Well, sort of. I read a book instead.
@Mimai:
I welcome you to the pile, even if I am a little out of place with you two as my team.
On the etymology fallacy: yes.
My reaction to the “English is English” line was, “which English?” I wonder if Moldbug speaks to his closest associates in Old English.
I recall an article I read concerning the use of “gift” as a verb. One of the comments was, “what are you doing to my language?” I thought that was presumptuous. And fails to understand language.
Taking a break from spring cleaning to relate a bit of anecdata to brighten some days.
Mr becca got talking to a local small business owner. He owns one of the ubiquitous vape shops you find in every strip mall in Memphis. Fellow is in a real lather about the TN legislature and their constantly mucking up his business at the behest of Big Tobacco. Lifelong Republican, he has recently had an epiphany— the GOP is not a friend to business. The democrats had his best business interests at heart. I guess he suspected my husband was someone he could safely rant. Anyway, one soul redeemed.
@Michael Reynolds:
@DeD and @Jay L Gischer are correct.
To add a little clarity, intersectionality and the idea that all oppression is connected are two separate positions that are often both taken by an individual.
The former, as defined by Jay and DeD, seems obvious as a concept, though extensions of it, conclusions drawn from it, and potential solutions are up for debate.
The notion that all oppression is connected is much more complicated to assess. I could see someone arguing that there is tension between the two, but I think that probably requires manipulation of the concepts.
However, I think you have a point about whether it is wise to assume x and y groups are allies. But we often reach this impasse—you are thinking in terms of practical politics, whereas others are thinking in terms of personal experience and ethics.
@Mimai:
I completely agree that where a word came from doesn’t tell you what it means today*. On the other hand, it was Moldbug who introduced etymology as if it were relevant. I was just pointing out that even that bogus argument fails on its own terms.
*I’m fascinated by how language evolves, and how badly even educated English-speakers understand the history of English. I highly recommend the work of Dr. Ann Curzan, a linguist and English professor who has studied the history of language change, and in particular how prescriptivism affects language change. Fixing English is a good introduction.
@Kurtz:
Without exception, every current accepted usage was once a reviled novelty, if not downright ungrammatical. Jonathan Swift ranted at length against using the word ‘realize’ to mean “suddenly understand” rather than its obvious true sense of “make real”.
As Ann Curzan notes, in any generational disagreement over language, the young always win, simply by outliving the old. Any usage widespread enough for us geezers to have noticed is already probably inevitable. It’s much worse in nonliterate societies, but it’s true in all of them.
@DrDaveT:
I could have been clearer that I was not calling you out (in?) re the etymology fallacy. The hilarity of the situation, as you note, is that he tried to go all “aren’t I learned” and failed in the most delicious of ways. If one were to go meta meta on it, one might say that he was hoisted with his own petard.
I am indeed familiar with Anne Curzan. And I agree with your estimation of her.
@Bobert: Doesn’t matter. This one is defining reality now. The next one gets to define reality whatever way it chooses. Existentialism rocks, too.
(And because you asked expecting a “real” answer, no, I don’t suppose most other administrations would. But some might. Still, what other administrations might or might not do is immaterial at the moment–and will depend on what teh peepul decide to elect. This may be an anomaly, but it’s the anomaly that got voted into office.)
@gVOR10: Wow! Three repeats. That’s unusual; the AI in charge at wherever must have thought this was really special.
@Bobert: I posted this yesterday so you can see actual numbers which I think is helpful. AFAICT Trump thinks its a rip off the European countries dont impose a VAT on stuff the export to the US but if you go through the example its what you need to do to make sure the VAT is neutral. Also a reminder that while the EU has a tariff of 10% on US cars we have a 25% tariff on pickups.
““Let’s start with a car that costs $50,000. If it is an American car, it would sell in the United States for $50,000 plus state sales tax—in this example, we’ll assume 5 percent—which comes out to $52,500. If that car were exported to the European Union, it would cost $50,000 plus the VAT, plus the tariff. EU VATs vary by country but are all between 15 and 27 percent. For our purposes, let’s say 20 percent, which is near the EU average. With the VAT, the car would cost $60,000. If you add the EU car tariff, which is 10 percent, that would be another $5,000 for a total of $65,000.
On the other side, if our $50,000 car is made in Europe and sold in Europe, it would cost $60,000—the base cost plus the 20 percent VAT. If the European car is exported to the United States, there it would cost $50,000 plus a 5 percent sales tax plus the 2.5 percent tariff, or $53,750. If you’ve made it this far, you can see the VAT operates as a sales tax on both cars, and any price differential is due to the difference in tariffs. If there were no tariffs on either side, the U.S. car in Europe, and the European-made car would both cost $60,000—the base cost plus VAT. In the United States, both cars would cost $52,500—the base cost plus sales tax. The price differential between the two cars in both cases is caused by the difference in tariffs, not the VAT.”
Steve
@Kurtz: As always, Calvin nailed it when he told Hobbes, “Verbing weirds language.”
@just nutha: Don’t know what happened with the threepeat. I hit post and got a message I was posting too fast. That closed and left the unposted comment up, so I hit Post again. Maybe that’s two, but three? Then I drove off and didn’t see them until after the Edit period. We used to have a function that warned of a duplicate post.
@Kurtz: When winning is the goal, there are no allies, only opportunities to be exploited.
@steve:
Many thanks Steve, I appreciate your effort. I’ll print off your response so I can be sure that I’ve caught all the details – but in the meanwhile, I really appreciate it.
@gVOR10: The function that warns of the duplicate post is still there AFAICT, but my experience with it was it only triggers if you repost a comment that didn’t load onto your screen but will show up when you reload.
@DrDaveT: @Mimai:
Maybe it was the parenthetical question mark that threw Dave off. I tilted my head, and figured that it was an incidental incongruity.
A few years ago, someone posted a link to an old NYT piece that complained about people butchering English. I remember the word “prioritize” was a target. The memory is fuzzy beyond that, but that part stuck with me.
I will add Curzan to my list of authors to read.
If you have not seen Is the Man Who is Tall Happy?, Michel Gondry’s documentary on Chomsky, it is worth watching—regardless of what you think of Generative Grammar or Chomsky’s politics.
Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World is an interesting read as well.
I took an undergraduate course, History of the English Language, a long time ago. Fascinating stuff.
@just nutha:
I do not remember that quote, but it’s fantastic.
The war between Elon Musk and Peter Navarro heats up. Musk called Navarro a moron and “Peter Retarrdo.”
@CSK:
So that’s what a battle of witless looks like.
@CSK: Mostly, the community in which I was raised didn’t pontificate much on masturbation. My take was that they were hesitant to risk going against popular culture. Smoking, drugs, adultery, fornication were pretty safely outside acceptable practice. Stuff closer to “home,” crickets.
@Kathy:
According to the MAGAs, it’s just a “philosophical disagreement” the media is exaggerating.
@just nutha:
Interesting. As I’ve mentioned, I wasn’t raised in any religion, so all of this is alien to my experience.
@Kurtz:
The (?) was me being petty. The preceding word was “argument” and I didn’t want to credit the author’s (?) string of words with that label.
More importantly, thanks for the recs.
@Michael Reynolds:
Freedom and equality under the law, motherfuckers!
(I think the “motherfuckers” really helps pull together what would otherwise be a dry slogan).
The left — and I mean that in the broadest sense, not just Democrats — haven’t really sold that message, or even made it clear that this is the message and the goal.
Regarding the rest, there have always been people who will punch whoever the bullies are punching in fear of getting punched. It’s a hard problem. It requires fighting the bullies hard enough that the weaker people don’t immediately see the bullies as stronger.
It requires fewer Chuck Schumers, and less hippie punching from “allies”.
Harris running away from trans folks and being as quiet as a mouse was a perfect example of the weaknesses in intersectionality. Walz’s “why are you being weird about that?” wa a perfect example of the strengths.
LGBTQ+ have the defining characteristic that we would all be wearing the same color triangles in the concentration camps, but that doesn’t stop a few quislings from trying to quisle. “LGB without the T, … or the B, really… look, maybe just L because lesbians are hot, but not those lesbians. Hot Lesbians being filmed for straight people’s enjoyment… maybe not even really lesbians.”
(Aside: I’ve always thought the pile of letters for LGBTQ… is because there’s no definition of a single group along the line of “sexual minorities” that wouldn’t accidentally include “minor attracted people.” My instinct is to say that so long as they aren’t harming children, they should be included, but that’s very clearly the instinct of someone who starts from logic rather than emotion. But it’s not like there aren’t rapists under every letter as is… except asexuals, I assume.)
@Mimai:
As I always say, I think we should be niggardly about arguments that depend on etymology.*
If nothing else, it’s usually a giant smokescreen. The “technically accurate is the best kind of accurate” shit that makes you want to punch someone in the face for that rather than whatever terrible shit they are on about that makes them really deserving of a punch in the face.
*: I don’t actually say that often. But “we should be niggardly with etymologically unproblematic words that nonetheless resemble slurs” has been used in conversation at a coffee shop when the baristador (male barista, like a matador for coffee) was explaining that the correct name of the little apple thing was a “faggotino.” Nope, nope, nope, that’s a “little apple thing.”
In the baristador’s defense, they were practically flaming and were clearly playing with my discomfort at the word. Was… was he flirting? Sigh. I might have missed the cute boy flirting with me.
@Michael Reynolds:
The queer community voted 86% for Harris in 2024
Our share of the electorate also rose to 8% of the voting base, the highest on record, so we also turn out to vote.
Now I realized you like dumping on queer people, but we’re one of the most loyal voting blocks in the Democratic Party, and that 8% is 8% you can’t afford to lose because you sure as hell aren’t getting an equivalent number of bigoted white men to replace us no matter how many times you throw us under the bus.
@Kurtz:
As I recall, it’s the second half of a two-part:
Any noun can be verbed, but verbing weirds adjectives.
@Kurtz:
I’m clearly still missing something. I was not intending to contradict or correct anyone; I was also simply piling on. Apologies if that was not clear.
(And thank you, @Mimai, for correcting my spelling of Dr. Curzan’s first name — I really should know better by now. No snark; it’s embarrassing.)
@Gustopher: Having looked up what a “faggotino” is, I can confidently say that you can safely order it as an “apple puff.*” The baristador needs to take a dozen or so steps toward more unpretentious. Starting with taking the “dor” off his job title.
*Provided that “puff” isn’t some sort of slur that I’ve missed in my many moves over the past couple of decades. “Little apple thing” is what I’d call it, so I’m charry on making a recommendation.
@Gustopher:
As usual, I am rendered impotent by your incisive wit.
And even if I weren’t so, I wouldn’t touch your landmine of a comment with a 6in pole.
@DrDaveT:
Carry on, we are all enjoying piling on together in harmony with each other.
I didn’t think you were arguing with me. Mimai was not either. Actually, I was pleased that you added on the etymology of executive, because I didn’t feel like doing it.
It is just such a glaring error (or obvious deception) that it should raise suspicion in any reader.