Wednesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, September 4, 2024
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42 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).
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Currently reading Erwin Chemerinsky’s No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States. It’s an excellent summary of all the failures of the Constitution.
A lot of Americans believe Trump did great things for the economy and will do it again. Facts are, that he wasn’t that great (other than for billionaires) and won’t be again.
Why the Harris campaign is not attacking his supposed strengths, I can’t figure out.
Goldman Sachs sees biggest boost to US economy from Harris win
While Harris has trouble with an edited soft-ball, multiple choice interview with her emotional support governor by her side, Trump is out there doing hour long podcasts answering question. Such as this one with Lex Fridman
And J.D. Vance is out meeting people in places like Erie, PA
In any case, the DC functionaries and politicals are entering one of their short seasons of work post Labor Day before their holiday season starts mid-November. That means the election campaign is starting in earnest just 3 weeks before voting starts in many places. Harris just has to keep her earphones in and her cell phone glued to her ear and let the media sell the anonymous staffer revealed Harris policies.
@JKB:
Once again, it seems obvious to me that you and I are not living in the same reality. As Inspector Gadget says in the ‘toons, “Wowsers, Penny!”
@Flat Earth Luddite: I have to admit, “Emotional Support Governor” made me chuckle a little. Hadn’t heard that one yet.
@JKB: “Emotional support governor”–oh, is this the thing where conservatives are suggesting a Pres/VP candidate side-by-side interview is something to mock, despite it being a standard during an election cycle? When is the Trump-Vance side by side interview going to be? More importantly, will we ever find out why wind power is preventing people from buying bacon?
@Paine:
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll look it up.
On other things, yesterday was one of those days composed of many small irritations.
First, I had little to do all day (which is why I was going to take time off this week and next). Then when I was about to get ready to leave, around 6:15 pm., I get a most urgent request for a price list. When that was done, I ran into heavy traffic and didn’t get home until 8:30 PM. And that’s when the desktop PC decided to fail. I wasted some time running disk repair, then trying to restore to an earlier state.
It may be the desktop has seen its last. If so, I’ll have to switch to the laptop, which means buying a monitor for it*. At least that’s cheaper than a new desktop. I’ll try to reinstall Windows this evening, maybe that will work.
Eventually I’ll need a new desktop, though if I get a monitor to begin with, I may get a new laptop instead. But I want to wait a bit, as the chip architecture is kind of changing these days. I need to look into it a bit more.
*Laptops are great computers if you never use the laptop screen, the laptop keyboard, or the track pad.
WAPO (gift link) notes that yesterday was the 100th straight day temperature in Phoenix hit 100 degrees or higher. Weather Channel is predicting 109 today.
@Scott: I asked my financial advisor a month or so ago what consequences his company saw depending on how the election came out. He said their firm, a top five company, didn’t think it would make any difference. I guess never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, or desire to avoid controversy. I’m surprised G-S went public.
It’s a decades long frustration that the economy almost always does better with a D in the White House and everybody thinks Rs, and Trump, are more trustworthy on the economy.
@Kathy: I had a high end company laptop, an engineering work station machine able to breeze through 3D CAD. We had a problem with it and the company sent in a tech who took it apart on a conference room table. That thing was packaged so densely there was no room for air in there. Or a fan that amounted to anything. We eventually replaced that machine and I still have the replacement. I keep it on a docking station with built in fans, and lots of ports. At the time desktops were thought to be more reliable because of better cooling. I haven’t seen any numbers on that lately. But of course you can’t conveniently take a desktop on the road.
Link to a Krugman piece. He analyzes recent voting trends among males by comparing West Virginia to the areas in Germany that most strongly supported the AfD, mostly the poor areas of the former East Germany. Both area have high unemployment rates among men. In both areas more conservative politicians try to farm this for votes by riling up the anger that already exists and making vague promises that they dont really have any ability or plans to achieve. A lot of this directing anger at immigrants though WV has fewer immigrants than any other state.
I think this helps explain what is going on in the Rust Belt and rural America but not sure it holds so much for states where employment is better. He touches upon that noting that the US has seen good job growth, but its in the kind of jobs that might require one to live in or near a city and its often the kind of jobs for which women can compete easily. Given that it appears that you dont have to actually deliver on anything you promise to these guys, it sure seems like the Dems ought to at least make some more explicit messaging aimed at them. I think we see some of that already.
https://archive.ph/9Cg9x
Steve
@gVOR10:
I bought my desktop in 2012 or 13, I forget exactly, when Windows 8 was dominant for some reason*. I got it cheap, because it was one of the last Windows 7 machines still for sale. The point was to avoid Windows 8 at all costs.
That was a mistake. I should have gotten a newer, if cursed, Win8 PC and fixed its main usability issues with an app like Start8. I did that with the laptop a year later. eventually both upgraded to Win10.
The other mistake was getting an all-in-one PC. It was very convenient as there is no multiplicity of wires back of the PC, but when it finally dies, I can’t just take the screen for further use. It’s then an all-in-one piece of trash.
*I call it WINDOS, and acronym for Windows 8 Is Not a Desktop Operating System. I still get mad when I think about it. And, yes, I did try it. I installed it a partition in an older laptop, and it was hard and stupid for a desktop system. If you’d told me it had been developed by Apple moles, I would believe it.
Bonoism of the day:
We are people borne of sound
The songs are in our eyes
Gonna wear them like a crown
I haven’t been a fan of Thomas Friedman, but his coverage of the current Middle East situation seems to be widely and deservedly respected. His column titled How Netanyahu Is Trying to Save Himself, Elect Trump and Defeat Harris (gift link) in today’s NYT is the best summary I’ve seen on the Gaza situation. He details what Biden and Netanyahu are trying to do, calling them the Biden Doctrine, which is complicated and pretty good plan to settle this, with the Netanyahu doctrine, which is a relatively simple plan to keep it going, at least until after the US election, for Netanyahu’s benefit.
It’s long and detailed and beyond one quote I won’t attempt to excerpt.
An interesting article in 538 discussing whether the Democratic Party is a strong one:
“But perhaps Democrats, at least, learned from these experiences. In 2020, Sanders emerged from the first few nominating contests as the favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination — an outcome that was unacceptable to many party elders. So they acted: House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn endorsed Biden, helping lift him to a decisive win in Clyburn’s home state of South Carolina. Shortly thereafter, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden as well, consolidating the establishment vote around him. With former President Barack Obama reportedly supporting Biden behind the scenes, three former chairs of the Democratic National Committee, former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke and powerful former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also endorsed Biden in the 72 hours between the South Carolina primary and Super Tuesday. The party had coalesced and decisively swung the primaries in their preferred candidate’s favor. It was the most impressive feat of party coordination in years … until this summer.
After Biden’s halting, raspy performance in the June 27 presidential debate flopped with voters and shone a harsh spotlight on his advanced age (already considered one of his biggest weaknesses heading into the election), many Democratic bigwigs resolved that they needed a new candidate in order to defeat Trump. According to tracking from VoteHub, five senators and 34 representatives publicly called on Biden to drop out of the race, and countless more reportedly came out against him behind closed doors. Reportedly, Democratic heavyweights like Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer all privately lobbied for him to step aside.
Then, when Biden finally did so, the party moved decisively to avoid a messy nomination fight and coronate Harris as its new nominee. Biden dropped out at 1:46 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, July 21 and endorsed Harris 27 minutes later. By midnight, 52 percent of Democratic governors, 66 percent of Democratic senators and 73 percent of Democratic representatives had joined him in endorsing Harris. By Monday night, just over 24 hours later, she had secured the support of enough delegates to become the nominee, according to the Associated Press.
In many ways, these are clearly signs of a hale and hearty party. “As someone who thought party power was diminishing, I really discovered that in many ways, shapes and forms, this party’s power is actually perhaps more significant than ever,” Rep. Dean Phillips, who ran against Biden in the 2024 Democratic primaries and discovered firsthand how hard it was to swim against the tide of elite party opinion, told 538 during an interview in the convention hall. Phillips noted that, directly or indirectly, parties control candidates’ ability to fundraise, access to media, “platforming” and access to state-party infrastructure. Without these things, he said, “there is no national success in American politics.””
@JKB:
The jist of the article you posted seems to be “JD Vance got up off the couch and ventured forth for the day. He didn’t accidentally tear off his shirt in an industrial fan incident before stepping onto a rake and then, whoospie-poopsie, falling into a vat of peanut butter while accidentally yelling the n-word. The campaign is really turning it around, but the lamestream media won’t tell you about it.”
Lol, even your description couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm. “Donald Trump is doing hour long interviews without needing a diaper change! And JD Vance is….meeting people.”
@JKB: Doing interviews is easy if you don’t care about substance and just say things like, “Harris is running against the American Dream” and “Your kids will go to school and come home a few days later with a sex change”.
And guess what, your base loves it. This is interview easy mode. I wouldn’t boast about it, if I were you.
@JKB: The President and VP candidate joint interview is a tradition going back many campaigns. Both parties’ nominees have done it. Trying to paint Harris as somehow different in this regard, and somehow needing Walz for support, is simply misogynoir.
Trump can be encouraged to blather on for an hour of meaningless word salad punctuated by utter lunatic idiocy like his bullshit about kids getting gender reassignment surgery at schools, and you think this somehow illustrates his strength? You may be less in touch with reality than even he is!
Yet another school shooting, this time in Georgia. Multiple ambulances and medevac helicopters. Unsure at this time how many wounded and/or killed. Apparently the shooter is in custody.
@Jen: They already did a side by side right after Vance was made running mate.
And yet more proof that Trump is not living on our planet. After the Arlington Cemetery incident was finally fading into the background, he blows new life into it by claiming that nothing happened at all, no altercation, no cemetery official at all. Setting aside that he’s contradicting the US Army, he’s also contradicting his campaign team who claimed some woman had a mental health incident and they had a tape of the event.
There are several places this is referenced but I read this one:
https://www.bostonherald.com/2024/09/03/he-said-they-said-trump-says-no-fighting-at-arlington-u-s-army-says-otherwise/
@Mikey:
According to CNN, at least 4 dead and 30 injured. Awful.
@Rick DeMent: I definitely missed that. Was it on their emotional support channel, FOX News?
“Vulture/NYmag”
snip …
…
Excerpts are at LGM
https://x.com/BriarcliffEnt/status/1830955846513369142
@Moosebreath: I don’t know if I can handle the idea of an organized Democratic party. It seems contrary to nature 😉
Quoting one of the comments posted at LGM:
@Just Another Ex-Republican: I wouldn’t worry about it. Seems to me like a unique set of circumstances had to come together.
@steve: There may be a tremendous amount of hay in that field if the Ds ever decide to farm it. Trump and the Rs strategy of giving the Rust Belt scapegoats of minorities is vulnerable to solid plans to better their conditions, which is what they really seek. They know Trump is a terrible human being and are immune to being lectured about that, and arguing the fact minorities are not the problem falls into the Rs desired narrative…IMO.
@dazedandconfused:
Ds have given them health insurance, supported the schools and medical facilities that have become the biggest employers in town, passed SS and Medicare which the town economy depends on, and the Medicaid, unemployment, SNAP, and disability payments. Hasn’t bought much loyalty. That’s all “welfare” and they resent welfare. What they want is the way things were before the local factory went under and Walmart killed the downtown. Ain’t happening. But Trump promises it will happen, after he punishes the right people. A solid plan is hard to come by.
@Mikey: This problem has been solved. The governor of Georgia has said that he is praying and ask everybody to join him in prayer. This action will certainly straighten things out.
@Slugger: Also, praying will bring back the dead. It is known.
My kid is homeschooled this year, and today I am grateful that we made that decision.
@Slugger:..This action will certainly straighten things out.
It’s been a few years but some kid found his grandfathers gun on a table in a camper trailer where he was playing with his sister. He accidentally shot and killed his sister. I don’t think that either one of them was 8 or 9 years old.
About all that I remember about the shooting was that one of the relatives of the dead child said that it must have been “god’s will”.
I still get the feeling that I am going to puke when I hear such excuses.
It’s too late to pray for those people Governor. They are already dead!
I’ve bene browsing desktop and laptop PCs today. The problem with keeping the same PC over a decade, is that you fall behind on what the specs mean. Is 8GB RAM standard, or is it low? Are AMD CPUs ok, or substandard? Do I need a Copilot+ PC?
I had planned an upgrade soon(ish), say around January 2025, to get around the end of support for Win10, and because even when it does work, my old PC has gotten veeeery slooooow. It can take 10 minutes between the time I turn it on and when Chrome deigns to work. Lately opening Word takes several minutes, too.
I can put up with that, most of the time, but clearly a change is due. I’ll try to reinstall Win10 to see if that improves anything, and if I can figure out how. Between the age of the PC, the end of Win10 support, and the new and curiously not-much hyped neural processing unit*, I’ll definitely be getting replacement soon.
*Gotta hand it to MS’s marketing dept. This sounds like something you’d expect Geordi to upgrade on the Enterprise.
@gVOR10: Yes, but they crave prosperity far more than they do handouts which alleviate the pains of poverty.
When a Brazilian court ordered Xitter to be blocked in Brazil, an internet services company not at all related to Xitter in any way, Starlink, informed regulators they would not comply.
They’ve decided to comply now.
I don’t know Brazilian jurisprudence at all, much less well enough to know whether freezing Starlink’s assets in the country is legally justifiable. But notice the argument that XpaceX is unrelated to Xitter, having completely different shareholders.
Does this mean Xlon 0.0 owns no XpaceX shares?
BTW, what are the odds XpaceX is charging cost for at least some space launches, and making up the difference selling Starlink terminals and subscriptions?
It doesn’t seem too likely, as Starlink requires lots and lots of Xalcon 9 launches no one pays XpaceX for, in addition to thousands of satellites. And it’s not as though launch customers have like tons of other options. Still, a lot of Xalcon 9s carry Starlink sats and nothing else.
@Kathy: Any new PC, desktop or laptop, you’d want at least 16 GB of RAM (that’s what my “gaming” laptop came with brand new 5 years ago, I upgraded it to 32 and that’s pretty small compared to newer systems), AMD Ryzer processors are fine, just choose the highest speed you can afford, same with Intel. Also, decent graphics card and minimum 500 GB solid state hard drive. The graphics card will have it’s own onboard RAM these days.
I chose an Intel processor, and despite it looking good at the time, it’s apparently not compatible with Windows 11. Windows 12 will come out soon, so I’m waiting to upgrade until it does.
My laptop is branded as an MSI, and I love the shit out of it. Will buy an MSI again. I am satisfied with the screen size, and I love the keyboard and trackpad.
Just my 2 cents, from shopping for myself. 😉
Let me demonstrate how petty I am:
Upon VP Harris winning the election, she should select Liz Cheney as the U.S. Attorney General.
A lotta mofos have some comeuppance due…
@DeD: I would love that! Mitt Romney as Secretary of State, Kinziger should be put somewhere, too. Ohhhhh, the heads that would spin!!! ;-P ;-P
@Jax:
Thanks!
Back in the stone age (c.1998), upon upgrading a fine PC from Win95 to Win98, the thing turned into something that really wanted to trun into a brick. A few calls to some acquaintances who knew PCs better, told me to try to add RAM, or downgrade back to Win95. We did the former, and the little Compaq ran faster than it ever had before.
Since then, I know to do one thing: get lots of RAM.
I saw a steeply discounted HP gaming desktop, no monitor, with a graphics card, Win 11, and Copilot+. That would be perfect, except for the 8 GB RAM. I might still risk it, if I can determine it has a free expansion slot for more RAM (and then I’d try to get it like 32 GB).
But all that has to wait at least past September. I’ve other bills due before then.
@DeD:
@Jax:
While I appreciate the effect, I wouldn’t put Ms Cheney in charge of the DOJ. She would not hesitate to prosecute the Weirdo’s old and new crimes*, but she probably won’t be aggressive at all in pursuing antitrust actions like Garland has been.
Maybe deputy AG.
Romney is qualified, IMO, but he’s also 77. SecStates travel a lot. He might not be up to it.
Kinzinger, I don’t know. He looks like a reasonable risk, as regards trust. But I don’t know enough to say where he might fit.
*El Weirdo will surely do something massively illegal to steal the election. This time he’ll find it hard to invoke immunity.
Though the Court of Crow & Leo might just find him immune if the price is right.
@Kathy: agree AG or SS is a stretch. But maybe a nice ambassadorship would be safe payoff, since most of those are already payoffs anyway