Wednesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, September 24, 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).
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@Gregory Lawrence Brown has been linking Dan McClellan videos. I’ve watched quite a few. Probably split equally between direct responses to content posted by others and standalone explanations of the views of scholars.
Yesterday’s video is worth watching, if only to watch a person treat their supposedly sacred book is little more than a social stance and prop for a political statement. But I think it is best to stay for McClellan’s case that these content creators are engaging in nothing more than social signaling.
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I watched a couple McClellan’s direct responses to Charlie Kirk. I had a recurring thought: Kirk and Shapiro act like what they think their audience expects a highly intelligent person to act like. They were (are) intelligent, but their contrived image is a dead giveaway that their actual purpose is at odds with their words. McClellan will likely struggle to reach anyone persuaded by the Shapiros and Kirks of the world simply because those who cannot recognize the difference between the former and the latter lack interest in depth of knowledge.
Indeed, the content creator McClellan shows in yesterday’s video says, “If it’s in the Bible, that’s what I think.” Which is not thinking, as I understand the term.
I also happened upon a video from another YouTuber commenting on a debate between Kirk and a Cambridge grad (?) student. If I had any doubts about my dim view of those who find Kirk, Shapiro, et al. compelling, that one put them to rest.
Because if anyone can watch that and still think Kirk knew what he was talking about, well, that person cannot be helped.
Because if anyone can watch that and still think Kirk did politics or ‘debated’ the right way, they are being far too charitable.
Not only did Kirk embarrass himself wrt to his understanding of the Bible, he also proved incapable of honesty, good faith, or humility.
ABC affiliates owned by Nextstar and Sinclair will pre-empt Kimmel.
Sharing to highlight this:
I am sure Mr. Armstrong does a good job filtering the current administration’s constant barrage of lies and misinformation so as to stay in line with these decades-old FCC restrictions that are finally being enforced by . . . the current administration.
Snark aside, were these unidentified restrictions in any way affected by Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo? I cannot imagine a law concerning the broadcast of falsehoods and misinformation could comprehensive to the point that it contains zero ambiguities.
Also, the behavior of Sinclair and Nextstar is the reason why I am uncomfortable drawing a bright line between government restrictions of speech and restrictions enforced by powerful private entities in media or payment processing. Campaign finance and regulatory capture are not the only means of wielding power without winning elections.
@Kurtz: I’m not anywhere near being conversed in antitrust law but I wonder if someone like Kimmel can bring an antitrust suit against Nexstar and Sinclair. It would have to be someone with deeper pockets than a Kimmel but it would surely be some pushback on the power some of these station owners have through their ownership.
FBI says it found classified documents in John Bolton’s DC office
As I wrote back in August when Bolton’s office was raided, anybody in DC circles (or anywhere else for that matter) that did not search and purge any classified material, no matter how trivial, from their homes and offices deserve what they get.
@Kurtz:
I may be “dim”, but I fail to see the “outright lie” that Kimmel spoke on the night in question.
Saying “desperate” and broadly characterizing the (implied) whole of “the Maga gang” may be an exaggeration or hyperbolic, but hardly rises to “lie” status.
Can anyone point out the “outright lie” to me?
@Bobert:
No, because it only exists in the “I am always always the victim” brains of people who ironically insist on calling liberals snowflakes.
@Bobert:
You’ve never come across to me as dim.
The worst Kimmel could be accused of in that monologue is commenting on a situation without enough information to make such a comment.
IIRC, Taylor made the same point—probably best to let more information to manifest before making definitive statements. I also highlight a point Bernius made around the same time—a person’s beliefs are often not reducible to a neat little package.
Additionally, to my point made about the lies and misinformation coming from the current administration, Trump himself “ recently claimed that, Kimmel “said a horrible thing about a gentlemen called Charlie Kirk.”
I wonder if Mr. Armstrong’s ABC affiliate aired that
commentlie.That raises a question. Should a group of people comb through the archives of WBFF-TV and file an FCC complaint for each time they aired some bullshit claim from Trump, et al.?
Speaking of FCC regulations, someone here recently mentioned the proposed Nexstar merger with Tegna. Apparently, this merger would result in Nexstar exceeding the cap on percentage of local television stations owned by one company.
Naturally:
@Jen:
Yeah, kind of like the Right’s criticism of safe spaces. What are Bob Jones University or ‘classical’ charter schools if not safe spaces for White Evangelicals who fear anyone not like them, find the existence of anything outside their narrow worldview as the work of Satan, and think religious freedom applies only to themselves or those of whom they approve (which just so happens to be based on political identity rather than theology).
After watching the one year anniversary coverage of Hurricane Helene on The Weather Channel, I feel like the eastern US is very lucky to not have any major hurricanes so far this year, given how inept this administration is at…..everything.
@Kurtz:..Dan McClellan videos…
Thanks for the plug.
So much for the Second Coming.
My Rapture happened when I was in High School on this day in 1965 when The Rolling Stones jammed with Get Off Of My Cloud!
@Jax:
Still some hurricane season left.
And full seasons for 2026, 2027, and 2028.
@Gregory Lawrence Brown:
Sure. But, really, I owe you a thank you for turning me on to this guy.
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When I was a kid, that was probably my favorite Stones song. I have others I prefer now, but I still love it.
I took the afternoon off yesterday (Rosh Hashanah family meal), and broke down enough to watch ep 10, season 3 of Foundation.
No spoilers.
It was as huge an ending as I expected, but nowhere near the developments I’d foreseen. IMO, part of the writing strategy seems to be “upset the expectations of those who’ve read the Foundation books.”
If anyone’s interested, by the books’ chronology we’re at about the end of book 2, Foundation and Empire, with like half a million differences. Seeing the prequels seem to be out of play, season 4 should end halfway through book 3, Second Foundation, and season 5 should take up the rest of the book.
Now, the next two books should not take 3 seasons to complete, but who knows. I can’t see Apple approving 8 seasons overall because 1) that’s not what streaming does, and 2) the show looks expensive to make.
Given the ending of season 3, I expect a merger between the theme of the second half of the third book with part of the fourth book.
But I’ve been wrong before.
News from home: Educator, ACLU Sue University After Firing Linked to Kirk Criticism
And the shittiest people in the world keep becoming shittier: Top DOJ official suggests he’s investigating FBI agent who sued Alex Jones in Sandy Hook defamation case
@Kurtz:…
I would be remiss if I did not credit Facebook for my discovery of Dan McClellan.
As for the Stones too many to mention…
I’ll leave this as an encore.
Trump will announce the indictment of James Comey later this week.
There have been news reports about how videos of the murder of Charlie Kirk appeared on sites almost immediately after the shooting. Apparently some viewers were disturbed by the recordings being seen without warning when they logged in to various platforms.
Reminds me of a news report that I saw when I was 10 or 11 years old. It was likely NBC or CBS
15 minute newscast at dinner time that was reporting on the Cuban Revolution that ended January 1959. There was film of Cuban revolutionaries executing people by firing squad. Some men were standing blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs. No sound just puffs of smoke from the rifle barrels as the men fell backwards into a trench that they no doubt were forced to dig. I don’t recall if there was any content warning* before the newsreel was shown. Since this was well over 60 yeas ago I highly doubt it. No one had to tell me what was going on. Was I traumatized by this? Damned if I know.
*Somehow I doubt that content warning was a feature of 1950’s TV newscasts.
https://www.ec-editorial.com/post/content-warnings
@CSK: Trump will announce the indictment of James Comey later this week.I wouldn’t be surprised if he did, which would make Trump a huge ingrate. Comey did more to elect Trump in 2016 than even FTFNYT.
@Gregory Lawrence Brown: I think that if people saw footage of school shootings, rather than the death of a racist podcaster, there would be a swift movement towards gun control.
I also think it was a public disservice to prioritize the privacy of Covid victims over information, and led to the “it’s just a flu” dismissals, when it was very much not a good way to die, and far more serious than people wanted to believe.
We protect people from the horrors of the world too much, especially when we don’t want people to try to do anything about it.
There are reports of a shooting at a Dallas ICE facility, with one detainee dead and a few injured.
The FBI is claiming that there were anti-ICE messages on shell casings (specifically the literal phrase “anti-ICE”), but who can trust the FBI?
If this was leftist political violence, I think we can all condemn such actions as being poorly thought through. Obviously there are going to be detainees at an ICE facility, and any plan is going to have to take that into account.
The education system has failed him. Even video games should have prepared him for that. JFC.
Per The Guardian:
I think an organization might have helped, by pointing out the likelihood of shooting detainees. Also, antifa is not an organization.
Also, political violence is bad, etc, etc.
This country is in a dark, dark place and political violence is inevitable and ongoing (masked thugs randomly pulling brown people off the street is political violence, for instance), so that’s kind of baked into my feelings on the matter. Not shocked. Not surprised. You might as well denounce granite for existing.
But the sheer incompetence.
13 second video on Tylenol
TL;DR: Clinically proven to be covered on FAUX News every 15 to 20 minutes.
@Gustopher:..school shootings…
I know that I have read news reports of school shootings that have quoted at least one of the surviving students, a teen age girl, stating that the press should show the carnage that she had experienced. My only source for this is my memory. Can’t cite any news organization.
I also remember some years ago doctors in an emergency room posting pictures. Due to patient privacy they could not show anything to reveal identities of victims but there was a lot of blood in the images that was attributed to gunshot wounds. The National Rifle Association was irate!
“Stay in your lane!” they raged at the physicians who dared post images of the slaughter. The zealots who support the 2nd Amendment had no use for others exercising their 1st Amendment Rights. I believe that one of the doctors replied: “This is our lane. We see this human devastation all the time.”