Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
·
27 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.
Inflation up 3.8%, and a new CNN poll finds that 76% (!!!!) of Americans say cost of living is their biggest economic concern.
That 3.8% increase is going to look quaint in a couple of months if this war of choice in Iran continues. I’m not sure that even Republican shenanigans on redistricting are going to help them much if this pattern holds through to, say, August/September. By then it will be baked into voters’ minds, even if the administration decides it wants to turn the ship around.
Also, all of the money Trump is spending on nonsense sh!t like painting the bottom of the reflecting pool and ballroom (now with a $1 billion taxpayer price tag) is not going to resonate well with voters. These are easy-to-understand excess/unnecessary costs. You don’t renovate the living room if you can’t afford to buy gas.
Prediction: These ships will never be made. But not before a lot of cash is burned and paper plans are produced.
Trump Class Battleships Will Be Nuclear Powered
They are already making up as they go.
It will take the Navy til 2028 just to define the “operational requirements” for this. The “technical requirements” needed for contracting will take a lot longer. So far all we have is a marketing brochure.
I have no expectations about the upcoming Xi-Trump meeting other than some bland photoops. War, peace, tariffs, and Taiwan are issues on which neither side is prepared to cede an inch. Will Chinese support for Iran change? They will want a big US concession for that.
If we make Venezuela the 51st state, we’ll be sure to win the World Baseball Classic next time.
People Want What They Want
And like our puppy, they want it now.
Haven’t had a chance to listen to the podcast that Last references, but if these voters are representative of the the voters who tip elections than Dems who believe that crafting the message or having a laundry list of programs and policies that they plan to implement will lose again.
Also worth a read from this AM’s NYT. Gift link.
@Scott:
The good news is that irrespective of from which party that the next prez is from, this is a dead program.
Speaking of dreams. Trump ran on bringing manufacturing back to the US. To manufacture, you have to have an industrial base. I feel like we are back in the 80s with Reagan pushing a 600 ship Navy which never happened. Now we are seeing the reality.
US Navy open to building ships overseas, new plan says
…
It is not labor shortage but rather actual shipyard availability.
Canada hedges its bets.
Canada eyes Turkey as a fellow mid-power ally in weapons development
Thanks, Donald Trump, for your disgraceful abandonment of our closest ally and friend.
My little bit of happy pettiness for the morning.
Rod Stewart praises King Charles for putting ‘little ratbag in his place’ on US trip
@Slugger:
“War, peace, tariffs, and Taiwan are issues on which neither side is prepared to cede an inch.”
If Trump were able to control his emotions and he had an experienced and well-informed set of advisors, I might agree with you. In the reality we live in, I expect Trump to get played.
@Scott:
I seem to be blocked from opening this link.
@CSK:
I was blocked also. Try it now
https://www.politico.eu/article/rod-stewart-praises-king-charles-putting-little-ratbag-in-his-place-on-us-trip/
Or this site:
https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/5873662-charles-us-tour-stewart-approval/
Odds and links:
From NOTUS: 21% drop in coverage through healthcare.gov. I assume this qualifies as a success for the Taco so-called administration.
J. Michael Straczynski has an optimist take on generative AI writing. TL;DR: LLMs suck at writing.
I concur.
The weather’s turned odd. First winter hung around through most of March (which I appreciated), now we’re getting regular cloudy days and rain. That’s normal summer weather, but way ahead of schedule. Also, it’s still rather warm. Weird. Regular summer cools down considerably.
@Scott:
Thanks very much.
@Scott:
The battleships being nuclear powered was a given, even if unstated. One of the bigger problems the Navy has now is that the new sensor suites and weapons have much larger demands for electricity, a problem that’s only going to get worse. Maintaining fuel supplies for diesel or turbine generators is a problem they’re better off without.
Given that Trump stays up all night rage-posting on Truth Social, no wonder he falls asleep during the day.
http://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-accuses-obama-treason-unhinged-132141857.html
Trump has nominated Kari Lake to be ambassador to Jamaica. As The Atlantic asks, “What did Jamaica do to deserve this?”
@CSK: Kari Lake left the US Agency for Global Media (Radio Free Europe, etc.) to take the Ambassador to Jamaica job.
So the question is: Is Kari failing upward or failing downward? And why does my tax dollars have to support this loser?
@Moosebreath:
It seems certain that if anything comes of this visit, it will be to the advantage of China, Xi, and/or the trump family, but not to Taiwan or the US. As the US representative–in his parlance–he doesn’t have the cards. He entered office having been dealt a full house, but foolishly chose to discard and now has at best two pair.
@Scott:
The MAGAs are very upset. They believe Kari deserves much better than Jamaica.
Bipartisan agreement puts $1.8 billion into education, property tax relief, and tax rebates in Wisconsin.
$600M for K-12 education, raising special education reimbursement from 42% to 50%. $600/family in tax refunds (of which many are parents of school-aged children) and tax relief (which, again, includes families paying for school with their property taxes), but.. a Republican agreed to the BIPARTISAN agreement, so… let’s bitch about it.
Shut up and take the win, for fuck’s sake!
@Jen:
His stated cost of the ballroom has gone from $200 million to $1 billion+ (and counting), while his cost for the reflecting pool work has gone from $1.8 million to $13.1 million (and counting). I’ve a feeling that we aren’t to believe what he says about how much things cost. Maybe use a rule of thumb that multiplies his stated costs by ten, but that may still be too conservative.
@CSK:
She’s from Arizona, a dry heat. Jamaica rather humid. Also all she’s ever going to be doing is dealing with lost passports and American tourists arrested for drunkenness. It’s pretty low on the State Department list of cushy posts. Better than Chad, not as good as Morocco.
@CSK: same thing the Bahamas did to ger Herschel Walker
@CSK: Sending her to Jamaica three weeks before hurricane season starts does seem to be a very specific choice.
@Michael Reynolds: @Lucys Football: @Jen:
Last November Lake’s family trust bought a 2 bedroom condo in Iowa. Maybe Trump unloaded her on Jamaica to keep her from running and losing in the Hawkeye State,
@Scott:
Rubio just wanted her out of Foggy Bottom. As @Michael Reynolds: points out she effectively has nothing to do and Jamaica is not going to be a world danger spot.
@Sleeping Dog:
Now I’m not so sure. There are rumors of a Jamaican Superdoobee that will get invading troops high at hypersonic speeds. Thus blunting any invasion.
Blunting. See what I did there?