Wednesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, July 30, 2025
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23 comments
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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.
Recommended Podcast:
From Bulwark’s Shield of the Republic.
I really only knew about MBS from the brutal dismembering of Jamal Khashoggi. So this was enlightening but also this is a story of an authoritarian that is imposing changes on a country that can only be considered “progressive”. Many would cheer those changes but like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Cesar Chavez, such people invariable turn to brutality when they are opposed. MBS, is in his early stages of reform and whether he follows that pattern remains to be seen.
The Unlikely Rise of MBS (w/ Karen Elliott House)
Who are the monsters?
Venezuelan deportees say they endured months of abuse inside a Salvadoran prison
A little history:
Ulysses S. Grant Picked a Confederate Slave Owner to Take Down the KKK
There is more history. To me, the story is that we ended Reconstruction too soon and we are still paying the price.
The Pentagon Against the Think Tanks
We have a government by sound bite and by trolls. Like Hegseth, no substance at all.
@Scott: And by “Cesar Chavez” I assume you meant Hugo Chavez.
@Joe: Yes, indeed. My bad. Thanks for catching that.
@Scott:
I always have to laugh-cringe when the MAGA crowd rails against the bogeyman of “globalism” —- a cause for the deeply uninformed and terminally naive.
MAGA leadership isn’t against all globalism, just that which they can’t control or profit from. And in a broad sense, railing against globalism is like shaking their fists at the weather — it’s force majeure, built into elemental human nature. But try explaining that to Fox News audiences whose very lifestyle as ultimate consumers, is utterly dependent on the largess of “globalism.”
Yesterday a supervisor who’s on vacation called to yell at me for having listed the wrong brand of frozen juice concentrate. She demanded I find the emails from the operations area where they defined which brand was to be used.
Surprise! The emails contained files indicating the brand I’d listed.
I don’t get why it’s a big deal, much less why over halfway through a year-long contract it’s even an issue at all. When this happens we usually come to some agreement with the customer, and the contract is amended to reflect the change. And this gets sorted out in the first few weeks of the year’s contract.
In any case, we offered the brand operations listed. If there’s a problem, it’s their problem.
Some years ago I said the chief nazi’s most consequential venture was making EVs cool and mainstream. Well, he’s ruined that, too.
On the upside, even with the As*holemobile (aka Xybertruck), conservatives are still no more likely to purchase en EV, not even a swastikar.
Trump Administration’s response by White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson:
Thank goodness we have a country governed by people at the highest levels dedicated to human rights, and transparency around its own actions without demonizing its critics, unlike some of those authoritarian, fascist regimes in the last century. How could one ever make such a comparison? On what basis? Where’s the data?
My home and general safety were never at risk yesterday, but the seriousness of the waves generated by the earthquake had me check and prepare my emergency plan. Happily the waves were not catastrophic. Kiddo and I just stayed home, glued to the news as the sirens wailed every hour. Beaches remain closed.
@Kathy:
Because Teslas comprised nearly half of the EVs sold in the US last year, and their brand name features prominently on banks of public charging stations, a lot of people will need time to reassess what their EV would be and how they would charge it.
@Scott:
Frankly, I think tanks promote evil too.
@Joe: But not uniformly, right?
@Eusebio:
I haven’t exactly been following the charger matter, but I think there are adapters for most non-Texla models so they can use the Swastikar chargers.
@Kathy:
True, but EV-charging station compatibility has been evolving, and there’s not yet one answer. I’m not saying it’s a show-stopper of an issue, but those who haven’t already bought an EV, or researched buying and charging one, may need some time to learn more and get used to the idea of possibly using charging stations having a tainted brand.
@Eusebio:
I hadn’t considered that last.
Absent a massive crash, though, it’s doubtful the chief nazi would sell his stock* and leave the company, or even that he could be eased out a la Steve Jobs from Apple.
*Ironically selling all his stock would create the crash. Catch-22…
Currently reading Allergic by Theresa MacPhail. Spoiler alert, it’s about allergies. I consider it an extension on my reading about the immune system. Allergies have more to do with the innate part of the system than the adaptive part.
It’s also far more complex than most books on immunity describe. after all, it plays a limited role in response to infection, past activating the adaptive part and producing many of the early symptoms.
If I took these kinds of compulsory courses, I’d wind up thinking there’s something to antisemitism, and I’m Jewish.
Seriously. For the past two years Israel has been conducting a cruel and massively destructive war, that no amount of 7th Octobers can justify. Add the latest strategy of starving the whole population, and explicit mention of expelling all Palestinians form Gaza, and who wants to rationally equate criticism of Israel wit antisemitism?
Time for the Israelis to kick the fascists out of their government.
Related to the previous comment, another prominent fascist opened a diner-themed restaurant in LA.
I wasn’t going to comment on it because 1) who cares? and 2) all the bad reviews and stress on glitches, holdups, fu*kups, long lines, enthusiastic supporters, gimmicks, people giving up on lunch once they realize it’s dinner time already, running out of food, equipment malfunctions, etc., are rather typical for new restaurant openings*.
But there are protests, and that is worth mentioning.
Note this clueless chief nazi supporter:
Besides the obvious, I’d ask him: what about all the people he cut off USAID without even a minute’s grace to let someone else take up food and medicine distribution to dirt poor and dispossessed people? How many did he kill that way?
*This is one reason many restaurants, and other venues, do an unadvertised soft opening before the formal, overhyped, grand opening.
One thing I find revealing about the second Trump term is the degree of mask-off these R whackjobs have decided is Finally Acceptable Really This Time. Political correctness really, to Republicans, has all this time actually meant that because they can no longer use the N word and beat their wives — and receive no consequences — then Society Is Ending Imminently or whatever.
Yarvin’s recent multiple tweets going on about “billionaires are N Rich” is both insane and entirely unhelpful from a policy perspective [ “The nature and function of their wealth is profoundly negrous” is an actual sentence he typed and posted ] …. and to me it does mean that we really need to bring back shame and societal ostracizing.
Obviously, fascists aren’t cool or useful or otherwise a productive part of society —– because if your “beliefs” unalive people who disagree with you, you don’t get to use that lodestone of liberal democracy “free speech.” Eliminating the discussion of this is [one of] the limits to free speech that needs to be both restored and defended.. as one example, Austria still does it.
I had a good laugh at this from 2013. There has been lots of scam in the Green agenda (Green $$$ in Green). But much of solar and wind power does make sense, just not all. I’m familiar with EU politics – this skit is not about America (sorry, world does not revolve around the USA). Enjoy
https://x.com/therealmrbench/status/1950579819831259161