Wednesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, August 27, 2025
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46 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
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BlueSky.
I must confess to being flabbergasted by the Cracker Barrel logo uproar. Who gives a damn?????
@CSK:Not me.
What happened to the toolbar for commenters?
@CSK: Having lightly read up on this, apparently the rightwads took exception to the removal of the man sitting by a barrel on the old logo, and as luck would have it Cracker Barrel’s new CEO is a woman. Dipstick facto – the logo change, initiated by an alleged DEI hire, was deemed “too woke.”
@CSK:..”Cracker Barrel”…
I heard a report this morning on NPR that Cracker Barrel will abandon the change and give the old coot his job back.
@Charley in Cleveland:..”Dipstick facto…”
Good one..
Waking up to a dem flipping an Iowa senate seat, breaking a gop super-majority. Democrats have been outperforming in previous recent races in the state. Ernst is trailing her dem challenger in legitimate polls.
And a bunch of Nobel laureates and health sciency folks are signing a petition demanding RFK Jr resign.
And there’s more! In a 7 way race in GA, 6 gop to 1 dem, the dem took 40% right off the bat.
Geeze, it’s almost like all that scolding about losing the electability plot on the dem side is a bit shrill and unnecessary.
@CSK:
My kids love cracker barrel and there are a lot in this area, so we go there every few months. The logo change was preceded by an interior redecoration that took a folksy home-spun look, with old tin signs and farming implements on the wall, and changed it to a blander, generic look, more akin to a Dennys. The logo followed suit.
However, the sum total of my feelings were “Oh, I don’t like this as much. Ah well, let’s order food.” For people to LOSE THEIR MINDS over it, is something else.
I do think, however, there’s an interesting conversation to be had around the convergence of corporate designs into a homogenized look. This substack gets to it, and it was published about 7 weeks before this brouhaha: https://medium.com/@tsecretdeveloper/why-logos-are-getting-boring-95891eddf306
Again, nothing to lose one’s head over.
@Gregory Lawrence Brown:
I think they decided to reverse themselves yesterday.
Cracker Barrel nonsense: Who TF cares this much about a chain restaurant with mediocre food and a “nail some sh!t on the walls” aesthetic? Not me. JFC, and liberals are the snowflakes??
In actual news, the US has been conducting influence operations in Greenland. I had hoped that we’d moved beyond this idiocy, but apparently the US has doubled down. (Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0j9l08902eo )
@CSK: @CSK:..
Hope your rehab is moving double time…
The very relevant fact about the Cracker Barrel logo kerfuffle is that EL Taco is in the Epstein files.
The Cracker Barrel kerfuffle is the same as the American Eagle nonsense.
Chum for the uneducated rubes who need to be distracted from the damage Trump is doing to them.
The only good thing about Cracker Barrel is that they allow travelers to park their RV’s for free.
@Gregory Lawrence Brown:
Thank you!
I just came across this in comments at LGM. It’s Harry Truman 75 years ago.
“I’ve seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the fair Deal, and says he really doesn’t believe in them, he is sure to lose.
The people don’t want a phony Democrat. If it’s a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat.”
“…when a Democratic candidate goes out and explains what the New Deal and fair Deal really are– stands up and puts the issues before the people– then Democrats can win, even in places where they have never won before. It has been proven time and again.
We are getting a lot of suggestions to the effect that we ought to water down our platform and abandon parts of our program. These, my friends, are Trojan horse suggestions. I have been in politics for over 30 years, and I know what I am talking about, and I believe I know something about the business.
One thing I am sure of: never, never throw away a winning program. This is so elementary that I suspect the people handing out this advice are not really well-wishers of the Democratic Party.
More than that, I don’t believe they have the best interests of the American people at heart. There is something more important involved in our program than simply the success of a political party.”
HAHAHAHA…
Prosecutors Fail to Secure Indictment Against Man Who Threw Sandwich at Federal Agent
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/us/politics/trump-sandwich-assault-indictment-justice-department.html
“Federal prosecutors on Tuesday were unable to persuade a grand jury to approve a felony indictment against a man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent on the streets of Washington this month, according to two people familiar with the matter. […]”
@Jen:
The reason might be it wasn’t a ham sandwich.
Cracker Barrel should have started rumors the guy on the sign was an Hispanic immigrant, so they had to get rid of him.
I saw somewhere their sales are down 16% from last year. Like Oldsmobile, their customer base is literally dying off. They had to try something. And it’s late stage capitalism, so better food wasn’t considered an option.
@Neil Hudelson:
I get upset at restaurants when they remove menu items I like, or when they close locations I found convenient.
It’s not to say the decor and ambiance don’t matter. But unless it’s very loud, very dark, or very bright in fluorescent tones (that can hurt your eyes), I don’t really care if the food is worth it.
@gVOR10:
I think I have been to Cracker Barrel once or twice in my lifetime (I grew up in Southern CA, and live in the Bay Area which to me do not feel like areas where CB had a large footprint) and even in just those one or two visits I thought the interior was pretty cool. So I get it, long-time customers are a bit taken aback by the revamp of the restaurants interior and logo.
The things is that apparently the folks who work at CB and are tasked to clean the restaurant kind-of hated how difficult it was to clean the restaurant so folks would eventually notice lots of grease and dust accumulation on a lot of the restaurants interior decorations without having to look too closely which eventually degrades the folksy charm that CB was going for.
Also, like a lot of chain restaurants it sounds like CB was impacted by folks just not going out to eat at these types of places as often as they used to. I remember the days when my family would probably go to chain restaurants like Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and Mimi’s Cafe around once a month as a treat, but once us kids started to go our own way that tradition just kind-of stopped.
I have to imagine that it is a much more cost effective measure to remove all the tin signs and oddly shaped bric a brac that adorns the walls and booths when it comes to getting in/out for a cleaning session before they re-open the next morning.
At the end of the day, I like to think you are going there because you like the food and if you are with family and friends you now have more of an excuse to interact with them as you are less distracted by all the decorations on the walls and booths. Whether or not someone considers it a plus that they now have less reasons to not interact more with family and friends, well, I will leave that up to them to decide, lol!!
Also, it is amazing how not just the folks on this great site have gotten to a point where we pretty much feel that every story that the GOP/MAGA folks tries to amplify is because they are trying to distract from the very real possibility that as crazy as it might seem, it might be written down that Trump met with underage girls.
We are still kind-of laughing about this, but one of these days I think this could lead to a severe and painful backlash against the GOP/MAGA, they really should stop stalling and just release every piece of info they have in regards to Epstein. They need to get it out of folks heads that Trump is a pedophile…folks can only ignore such a thing for so long before there is a day of reckoning.
@Jen: I served on a federal grand jury during the Obama administration. We had a very well respected by all sides US Attorney and his very thorough team.
In my two years term we never turned down an indictment. The process is so straightforward. There are elements that need to be met to secure the charges and the attorneys should KNOW they have the goods before they enter the jury room. Ours did. We joked about rubber stamping and it did feel kinda robotic, but it really was because these guys knew what their job was and did it right.
A friend texted me an hour ago saying there was an active shooter at a church and school about 100 yards from her house.
20 victims.
Jfc.
ETA: It appears the 20 victims are all injuries, no deaths yet thankfully.
“Neighbors reported hearing significant gunfire, so much that they didn’t think it was actually gunfire. ”
https://www.fox9.com/news/minneapolis-shooting-church-aug-27-2025
@Jen:
Perhaps the timeline and manner of arrest didn’t help convince the grand jury that the crime was as serious as they claim. As reported by CNN on Thursday, August 14,
“After a brief foot chase Sunday night, Dunn was initially detained and then released the next day with no charges, his lawyer Sabrina Shroff said.
On Wednesday, Dunn learned there was a warrant out for his arrest and got in touch with Shroff who told the court, “I had no way to surrender him” after she attempted to call multiple government officials.
Before he turned himself in, 20 officers came to his door Wednesday to arrest him on the felony assault charge he now faces, Shroff said.”
I’d like to think that the initial decision to release him and the obviously performative BS during the re-arrest affected the felony charge credibility in the eyes of the citizen grand jurors.
Re the school shooting in Minneapolis. All the politicians, Trump, Noem, Walz, etc. are saying that they are praying. Please excuse the ignorance of this secular guy, but what good does praying do? Does it heal bullet wounds, make the prayer feel better for some reason, or is it just empty hypocritical posturing by politicians? Do any of our elected leaders have a concrete plan for diminishing these events?
@Slugger: With the current SCOTUS praying is about all they can do.
I just heard a report by the Minneapolis Police Chief via KFI-AM Los Angeles. Two children are dead. The killer committed suicide.
This was shooting at a Catholic Church. The killer was out side. Apparently blocked church doors with 2x4s and shot through the church windows into the church where schoolchildren were attending Mass with some adults.
@Slugger:
I don’t quite get the paradigm of the omniscient deity who needs to be informed. Or that in his omnipotence he is powerless.
@Slugger:..”Do any of our elected leaders have a concrete plan for diminishing these events?”
———–
They could start by asking “Where is God when these murders of innocent children occur in His house?”
“Where are the invisible angels that are supposed to protect children?”
Is this God’s will?
@CSK:
For decades there have been people in rural areas who bemoan the demise of their particular values and lifestyle. The Republican Party has been quite successful at selling them on the idea that urban liberals (ie, Democrats) are managing that elimination intentionally. (When I was working for my state’s legislature 15 or so years ago, I remember a Republican speaking on the House floor, ranting about how the urban/suburban Front Range corridor was “declaring war on traditional Colorado values.” Things have reached the point that they will take umbrage at even removing indirect symbols of that culture.
@Daryl:
Ah: irrelevant bs quickly forgotten as the easily-manipulated and Terminally Online move their fake outrage the next Putin troll rightwing distraction event.
Anyway, the dollar is crashing, small businesses shuttering, electricity/power bills skyrocketing, inflation worsening, and job growth tanking thanks to Republican economic mismanagement –especially the dumb economy-destroying tariffs. Multiple allied nations just blocked postal shipments to the US. Medical associations now publicly contradict the CDC and US Dept of Health, institutions gutted by RFK Jr., an idiotic science-denying freak who dangerously undermines public health.
Also, millions still stand to lose healthcare while Republicans shower the rich with corporate welfare and send Latinos to torture prisons without due process.
And the MAGA regime of incompetent and unqualified alcoholics, druggies, and dog killers still won’t release the Epstein files: they might further evidence Donald’s long and disgusting history of rape, assault, and pedophilia. While the fascist/commie prez hallucinates imaginary convos with other leaders and rants online at 3am in ALL CAPS. Super normal.
What I remember about Cracker Barrel from when I was a kid – you know, in the Stone Age – was that there were specialty food stores in a few malls where you could get cheese and crackers and things that were a lot more interesting than what was at the grocery store.
The grocery stores caught up. Also we got Trader Joes and other specialty stores. Cracker Barrel probably should have folded its tent then and walked away.
@Michael Cain:
One part of Trump’s 2015 speech stood out to me. The responses, understandably, focused on the “rapists” part. But the part that drew my attention was the word “sending”. Trump used that wording multiple times. “When Mexico sends . . .”
That isn’t how migration works. That isn’t why people migrate.
That phrasing came into play recently wrt Venezuela and Tren de Aragua when the administration claimed the Venezuelan government was intentionally sending gang members to the US. Perhaps as a means to satisfy the legal conditions of an “invasion”.
But there is more to unpack. The mainstreaming among the GOP of The Great Replacement Theory gets a lot of digital ink. But the adjacent, long-standing claim—Democrats are ‘importing’ brown people to manipulate voting demographics—seems to have been fairly common among GOP pols, voters, and activists for years before Trump. Whether it was mainstream, or ‘establishment’, I’m not sure. But it has been there for a long time, beyond the Steve King fringe.
But more generally, note the thing, other than xenophobia, that ties those two views together: that someone, somewhere is actively working against the interests of _______ America(ns). Paranoia themed Mad Libs.
Looking at Taylor’s posts today, as well as the fear motif of previous posts by Taylor, Kingdaddy, and Bailey, one can see this pattern pretty easily.
Taylor wrote today, “people like order.” Personally, I think whether people like order or not is contingent upon their own position. But that’s not my point here.
Rather, it’s the idea that some people are obsessed with order to the point that they will insert order to phenomena that are disordered or the result of societies that have restrictive social, political, and economic structures.
To them, migration or crime cannot possibly be the result of complex processes within and between interrelated domains of societies, but must be directed by someone’s hand.
Back when I first heard Trump’s words in 2015, the first thing I zoned into was that declaration of intention—Mexico “sending”. The race-baiting, the xenophobia needed to be called out. I agree.
But I have to wonder whether there should have been more discussion of implied hostile intent by some actor. That seems to be the underlying idea that doesn’t get vetted. It seems pretty easy to describe it in such a way that highlights the paranoia and absurdity.
@Kurtz:
I seem to be missing the quote button. So:
“Rather, it’s the idea that some people are obsessed with order to the point that they will insert order to phenomena that are disordered or the result of societies that have restrictive social, political, and economic structures.”
It’s almost like applying the pathetic fallacy to human collective action. This seems like a paradox, as humans clearly have human expression, emotion, and motivation, but it’s not. There simply isn’t a coordinated set of rules to most aggregate, spontaneous collective action.
The whole Cracker Barrel thing is funny when you realize originally Cracker Barrel had no old dude on a Barrel, just the name “Cracker Barrel”. Now the party that lives off never changing anything is angry about a place changing it’s brand logo back to really what it was originally when it was created (and for some years after). Weird. You would think they were removing a confederate monument or something the way people lose their minds over it. Amazing how media and a POTUS with dementia can stir up anger over trivial day to day stuff.
The headline reads: FDA approves new Covid-19 vaccines in US but limits who can get them
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/27/fda-new-covid-19-vaccines-restrictions
The salient part: “The agency has authorized Covid vaccines for people 65 and older, who are known to be more at risk from serious illnesses from Covid infections.
Younger people, though, will only be eligible if they have an underlying medical condition that makes them particularly vulnerable.”
How does this work? Will you need a doctor’s prescription to get the booster? Or is it just a recommendation or guideline?
Mexico’s government last year issued a similar statement about the flu vaccine. This meant in government clinics and hospitals only those at risk, over 65, etc. could get it. but if you wanted one from one of the many drugstores and private clinics that offer it, you just had to pay for it $around US $20 at the time, the COVID booster was about $40).
@CSK: I thought having a cracker and a barrel in their logo was a bit too on the nose, but the new logo was just bad.
Not get all worked up into a fervor about it bad, but just plain bad design bad. They also swapped out the chocolate brown color in the logo, which… no, just don’t do that. The colors are as iconic as the old cracker sitting next to a barrel.
I hope rehabbing is rehabbing along.
@DK: Cracker Barrel stumbled into it through incompetence. American Eagle carefully created an ad campaign that explicitly referenced eugenics and made a pun.
I like puns as much as the next guy, but AE was deliberately creating a backlash knowing that the Republican anti-woke crowd would get very excited and betting that this would help their brand more than hurt.
Huge difference. It’s the exact stupid vs. evil dichotomy that people debate, but with clear answers.
——
WOKE: Whatever Offends Klansmen Easily
@Kathy: It’s a theme restaurant, and part of the draw is the entire experience. It tries to be an immersive experience that engages all the senses — sight, sound, flavor and smell.
And it does so much better than some of the other theme restaurants like the Hard Rock Cafe, Round Table Pizza, or the Rainforest Cafe (no howler monkeys).
You don’t go there just for the food, you go to be reminded of the Jim Crow South, as much as legally allowed — no segregated water fountains, etc. It asks the question “what if Jim Crow was nice?”
I think rebranding to water down the theme is a mistake — it will just slowly waste away and waste the owners’ time and money.
If they’re losing traffic, they should convert a few locations to different themes and see what resonates. Maybe something with Dragons and Wizards, since fantasy is so popular.
A little revamp and it could get a Harlem theme and be soul food for white people. Maybe add some vegan chitlins to bring in the kids. (Alternative “meats” might really work to recreate the texture)
There was a restaurant in Seattle that would change themes every few months, so maybe they could study that and see what was successful. (During the Washington DC theme, they had Marionberry pancakes with brown sugar “crack” and sprinkled with white powder (confectionary sugar).
Must not have been a ham sandwich…
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/d-c-u-s-attorney-no-indictment-sandwich-assault/
snips:
Politics
D.C. U.S. attorney fails to obtain indictment against man who threw sandwich at officer
Federal prosecutors failed to secure a felony indictment from a grand jury this week against an ex-Justice Department employee who admitted throwing a sandwich at a federal law enforcement officer in Washington, a source familiar with the case told CBS News.
According to charging documents, Sean Dunn, 37, allegedly threw a “submarine-style sandwich” at a Customs and Border Patrol officer stationed at a busy intersection in Northwest Washington, D.C., on Aug. 13.
But a federal grand jury empaneled to indict Dunn declined to do so. It is unclear whether or not federal prosecutors will try again to secure an indictment against him, or seek misdemeanor charges instead, which would not require a grand jury decision. He is charged with one count of assaulting federal law enforcement. No plea has been entered in the case, but there is a preliminary hearing scheduled in his case for Sept. 4.
@Gustopher:
With a name like Cracker Barrel, I can’t say I’m surprised.
I’m not much into themed restaurants. When I visited the late Star Trek attraction at the late Las Vegas Hilton*, I skipped the Trek themed restaurant, which was even branded Quark’s Bar.
*The hotel still exists, but now it’s called The Westgate. The attraction was dismantled.
A relative who was a prosecutor for an urban county said that sometimes they overreached in seeking indictments. Political pressure from higher ups or a vengeful public led them to seek indictments like this. This guy threw a sandwich and could have been charged with misdemeanor creating a disturbance, but the need for maximum over the top law enforcement took over. My relative said that the front guys who did the day to day work and didn’t get interviewed did this overreach without smirking.
@Gustopher:
Rehabbing is grueling but the staff is very nice.
Love your WOKE acronym.
A California Republican official (an endangered species) proposes to split the state i two down the middle.
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/27/california-democrats-republicans-redraw-maps
I think it’s a great idea.
Sure, it would further tilt the EC to the Wingnut party, but it’s a unique opportunity to carry out an experiment.
Many economists and political scientists note the stark differences between North and South Korea. Same language, same ethnic population, different political economic systems. one is a prosperous country, the other a basket case with nukes.
What would East California become? the Mississippi of the West, perhaps?
I kid because there’s very little chance not only of this ever happening, but that we won’t even hear about it a week from now.
@CSK:
Glad to hear you’re on the way “up” (can’t say “out”, not in a medical context, NEVER say “out”!).
The PT people, as people, are so much better than the docs aren’t they? I believe that’s partially because they have to be. Docs can get away with being rude, but PT is a participatory sport, they have to communicate.
@Gustopher: At first I figured American Eagle was pretty clever for its outrage marketing agitprop, but now I’m not so sure. Most viral ad campaigns dominate the zeitgeist for a season at least, or even have taglines that stay permanently in the public consciousness (“Where’s the beef?” “It’s Shake N Bake…And I Helped!” “Just Do It” “Mmm Mmm good” “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand” “Tippacanoe and Tyler Too” “Give Em Hell, Harry!” “I Like Ike” “Madly For Adlai” etc).
The public has already moved on from AE’s Sydney Sweeney bit. The hustle was not as smart as I thought. No legs at all.
27 Days in August:
CDC director is out after less than a month; other agency leaders resign
“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted,” the attorneys wrote.
She was sworn in on July 31 — less than a month ago, making her the shortest-serving CDC director in the history of the 79-year-old agency.
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/27/g-s1-85911/cdc-director-susan-monarez-ousted-leaders-resign
So this person thought that she would be a beacon of reason in a government department headed by the quack RFK Jr.?
What was she thinking?
@DK:
American Eagle may have been playing that game but Sweeney’s PR people would have moved fast to choke it off once it became politicized.
@Michael Reynolds: The clever bit was American Eagle paying or goading obscure TikTok accounts to float “This ad is racist eugenics!!11!!” trolling. (I have no proof, but based on personal experience with how brands hide their influencer collabs, it was too rank with the stench of tail-wags-dog to lack coercion or bribery.) Thereby elevating an otherwise forgettable ad campaign to a Moment. Because Fox News and Pepertually Outraged Rightwing Twitter Nuts responded as planned, inevitably, like Pavlovian dogs.
What AE and Sweeney’s people did not factor in, apparently, was Extremely Online Professional Left Loons taking the bait and scolding AE and Sweeney for…reasons. Because, of course they did. Keep focused on real issues? resist the urge towards reflexive oppositional defiance? decline to react? Lol nah.
I do appreciate that that some pretty big outlets did examine the timeline and publish some pieces that all but said, “Y’all know this all fake, right?” That was a pleasant surprise.