Saturday’s Forum
Enjoy the weekend.
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, May 16, 2020
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75 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a 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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Someday, while I am still alive to see it I hope, adults will return to the White House.
The headline of the day-
J.C. Penney, 118-Year-Old Department Store, Files for Bankruptcy
@OzarkHillbilly:
Trump poses a fresh embarrassment every day, doesn’t he?
WaPo:
The Florida headline of the day-
Tallahassee police officers nab 2 burglary suspects. One was allegedly stealing a bunk bed
@CSK: I read this stuff and then I look at all the 70 yo MAGA hat wearing fools and all I can think is “WTF??? A black president made your existence so miserable that this is an improvement?”
One of the stories that has not been highlighted by OTB is Trump’s new accusations of “Obamagate”.
Of course, that is because there is no THERE there, as with many of Trumps wild accusations. It’s an attempt of deflection in time of crisis.
One of the more interesting stories:
Obamagate was the worst crime ever committed and here is what it was
I think that it has the fevered-dream and spittle-launching machine-gun deliver down to a T.
6 months to November.
in response to Michelle Malkin saying that tech censorship had to be addressed, we just got this.
I am shocked, shocked I tell you! (NYT) The Richest Neighborhoods Emptied Out Most as Coronavirus Hit New York City
I know you are too.
Earthquakes and other news:
“Magnitude-6.5 earthquake is largest in Nevada in the past 66 years” (CNN)
This is part of Area 51 US military base. I am wondering about a possible connection there. I am going to be looking more into that.
More on the San Diego quake of May 10:
“Did You Feel It? 4.5 Magnitude Earthquake Shakes San Diego” (NBC San Diego)
“Another quake rattles north of San Diego County” (Fox San Diego)
This one was 3.1 Now that is minor out there, but around here anything over 2.5 would send people running outside like the sky had fallen, and then to the store for milk and bread (toilet paper?): like they do when two inches of snow is forecast.
So it appears that the San Diego region is getting more active.
No doubt about it; the Ring of Fire is heating up.
“Fireball lights up the sky over parts of Georgia” (WRDW) Another night another fireball.
“Barack Obama is not a ‘shuck and jive’ person of color, and those are the kinds of people that Donald Trump seems to be attracted to if you look at who he surrounds himself with as far as minorities are concerned.”
-Tara Setmayer
“There’s some racism there but, most of all, it’s driven by the fact that Obama has the thing that Trump has always craved but never achieved, and that’s respect. I’ve always thought that the respect that Barack Obama gets from people in this country and around the world is something that just eats Trump alive inside.”
-Matthew Miller
@OzarkHillbilly:
Trump is a buffoon–a malevolent buffoon, true–and he’s always been a buffoon. Long before Obama he was a bad joke. A laughingstock. He’s aware of this, and he seethes with resentment about it.
Simply good news: The end of plastic? New plant-based bottles will degrade in a year
@CSK:
What makes it worse for Trump–far, far worse–is that he knows that the only people who worship him are the people he despises.
@Tyrell:
Tyrell, sit down, take a deep breath and breath into a paper bag if you need to. We’ll get you some warm milk ant that’ll help settle your nerves.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Didn’t need to read that article, I’ve been watching the mc’mansions along the water open over the last few months, far earlier than normal. Snowbirds who normally don’t comeback till June were here in late March.
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t know who Matthew Miller is, but he probably spends a lot of time with people who respect Obama, and none with people who respect Trump. This quote is a real life version of the Kael Nixon myth.
CSK is wrong, too. Trump adores anyone who adores him, for as long as they do. CSK despises Trump’s fans, but Trump loves them.
@Tyrell:
Tyrell, sit down, take a deep breath and breath into a paper bag if you need to. We’ll get you some warm milk ant that’ll help settle your nerves.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Didn’t need to read that article, I’ve been watching the mc’mansions along the water open over the last few months, far earlier than normal. Snowbirds who normally don’t comeback till June were here in late March.
ReplyReply
@OzarkHillbilly: Good. Social distancing is hard in the city.
@95 South: Does Trump love them? Maybe in the same way as he “loves” the gullible people he cheated with Trump University, or the dozens (hundreds? Thousands?) he conned into believing buildings with his name on them were “his” and he was putting his own money and expertise into rather than just selling his name and getting a cut of the take for ever sucker he brought in the door. Of course some of those suckers wealthy and persistent enough to take him to court later discovered that all their money was gone paying Trump and the various “consultants” involved and there was none left to actually build the buildings.
Does he love those people? Sure he loves having lots of them available, the more the better, but does he love them?
@95 South:
No, I’m exactly right that Trump despises the people who love him. I live in the northeast, so I’ve known about Trump since the 1980s–probably far longer than you have, though I’m willing to be proven wrong on that particular score. Trump is a failed social climber. If you know that much about him, you know pretty much all you need to know about his motivations. Ever since he was a very young man, he’s been desperate to be accepted by the social, cultural, and financial movers and shakers of Manhattan. (FFS, the man has admitted as much several times, and on this particular score, I believe him.) But given that he’s an irremediable swine, totally incapable of behaving in remotely civilized fashion, he was always doomed to fail. Come on, did he really think that boasting publicly about his sexual prowess was going to win him the plaudits of the spiritual descendants of Louis Auchincloss and Edith Wharton? Or that plastering his name in gold letters all over Manhattan was going to win the esteem of the Tuxedo Park crowd? No–Trump will forever be the idol of the guy from whom he’s spent his entire life in flight: the guy on a barstool in Queens. He’s Archie Bunker’s dream of success.
Remember these three words: Failed. Social. Climber. They’re everything you need to know about Donald J. Trump.
@Tyrell: ““Magnitude-6.5 earthquake is largest in Nevada in the past 66 years” (CNN) This is part of Area 51 US military base. I am wondering about a possible connection there. I am going to be looking more into that.”
Please explain exactly how you are going to go about “looking more into” this.
@95 South: “CSK is wrong, too. Trump adores anyone who adores him, for as long as they do”
And you know this from your long, personal relationship with the man? From months of correspondence with him? Perhaps you shared a dorm room with him at one point?
Or are you just coming up with an opinion and calling it a fact?
@wr:
If you adore Trump, as 95South may well, despite her protestations to the contrary, you have to tell yourself that Trump adores you in return. Otherwise, you look a bit like a chump, don’t you? Or, if you prefer, a sucker.
A loser, to use Trump’s favorite locution..
@95 South:
Trump adores being adored and longs to be loved, but there is little in the way of facts in evidence to suggest that he reciprocates.
And, I would note, you aren’t a Trump supporter, but you again are arguing in favor of the most favorable interpretation of Trump’s actions.
@95 South: Well I spend a lot of time with both. Trump devotees, on average, are not people of logic, reason, or very open minded about much in life. They also tend to be vindictive assholes who will turn a disagreement into something personal in a heartbeat. Or course, you’ll say the same of the Left–which is true–but not to the same amount of frequency. You claim to be an honest broker…yet only fact check the left and Democrats information. I cant find a post where you gave any credit for any poster ‘s opinion as being fair.
@Tyrell: In fact, earthquakes cluster, which you seem to be aware of: https://earthobservatory.sg/faq-on-earth-sciences/why-do-earthquakes-happen-clusters-0
But that doesn’t make for good predictions, because the clustering happens at all scales. There’s no telling if that 6.5 is the biggest of the cluster, or even related. But as has been mentioned before 4.5s are news items and not much more, and stuff smaller than that usually doesn’t get noticed at all. The thing is, a freight train going by can shake you more than a 3.6 will.
@Steven L. Taylor: Most favorable? I’m saying he has the emotions of a toddler. He loves everyone who compliments him, and then hates them when they stop. This is why someone like Mitch McConnell can work with him. Mitch understood it’s not about ideology or even history with Trump, it’s saying nice things in the moment. Mitch can do it because he has no principles. Schumer could have done it but he thinks “us versus them”. The few times he and Pelosi have reached out, Trump has been eager to work with them. Every path Trump has gone down in his Presidency, he’s been following behind people who complimented him.
@95 South:..Trump adores anyone who adores him,..
@wr: In fairness, we are all operating on opinion on this.
A month ago I was posting on here that Chloroquine was most definitely not a miracle cure and was very likely to cause excess deaths. 95South, you especially called me to task for not giving this a chance to play out before offering an opinion. Aside from the fact that taking random drugs until and unless they prove harmful is a terrible idea, I argued that we already knew enough to draw conclusions and that Even if it turned out that under some particular patients at some particular dosage and with some additional drugs it had any medical benefit for C19 at all, it wasn’t going to be sussed out by giving random dosages to random people in a completely uncontrolled experiment. Well, time has moved on since then and, as this WaPo article sums up, it wasn’t a miracle, there isn’t any evidence that it has a beneficial effect on actual C19 patients, and a quickly growing body of evidence that it is contributing to their deaths.
@95 South:..Trump adores anyone who adores him,..
@MarkedMan:
You’re citing the WaPo?????? But every good Trumpkin–and defender of Trump–knows that’s an organ of Fake News.
@Jim Brown 32:
IIRC, he commented positively about a post I wrote a couple weeks ago about the dilemmas associated with the reopening debate.
@95 South: I sincerely would argue that making the statement that Trump actually loves his supporters is a far more positive interpretation than he deserves/has empirically demonstrated.
If your assertion is that he acts like a toddler, I accept your revision, but that was not evident above. You do see that your position comes across as a defense, yes?
@95 South:..He loves everyone who compliments him, and then hates them when they stop.
Please be sure to let us all know when the KKK and other White Power Junkies stop supporting Trump.
Libertardians musta told Amash to get lost.
@Steven L. Taylor: I described him the way you would a beagle. I can’t climb through the screen Ring-style and make you consider it wasn’t a compliment about a responsible adult. I could have written “Trump sucks” 20 times like the usual commenter I guess, or I could have posted the same thing under a different name and people may have reacted to the words.
One point of recollection about Trump: In the fall of ’87 (about three weeks after Black Monday), I was at a committee meeting in NYC to plan the program for a professional conference. We were at the Grand Hyatt (which I remembered as the old Commodore Hotel). As we concluded our discussions, one member asked the chairman, “So is this where we’re going to hold the conference?” To which he replied (as best I can recall), “No, Donald Trump is in a financial bind and demands rack rates for the rooms.” This, at a time when other Manhattan hotels, in fear of a recession, were already cutting their room rates. We wound up holding the conference at the Waldorf-Astoria.
@95 South: if your goal was to describe his behavior as toddler-/beagle-like, some clarity would have been helpful. Which, you have now provided, and I accept.
@95 South: @Steven L. Taylor: I am pointing out why you come across as carrying water for Trump, despite protestation of non-support. Again, I truly accept that you don’t support him, but if you are going to be honest with yourself, you have to see how you come across as nonetheless defending him.
You need to either own up to what you are saying, or be clearer in your position.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Duck, walk, quack, etc. etc.
@Steven L. Taylor: I was thinking “How do these people obsess over Trump and still don’t understand him? Well, after I post this they’ll at least have their precious evidence I don’t support him.”
@95 South: Speaking as someone who has written I do not know how many thousands of words in a public forum over the course of seventeen years (not to mention roughly a quarter of century teaching at the collegiate level), I have had to learn that what I think I have said, and what others have perceived I have said, may not always match up. Indeed, after all that practice I do not stick the landing 100% of the time and I still work at it on a daily basis. While sometimes the lack of comprehension in on the reader, I have to own up to my own lack of clarity sometimes.
You have proclaimed yourself a truth-teller and a corrective agent, going so far as to proclaim yourself an “ombudsman.”
As such, it seems perfectly reasonable to expect some clarity from you and to note when you are not being clear. Is this not fair?
In all sincerity as well, if your goal is truth-telling, but many seem unconvinced of your position, I would think you would want to refine your approach.
@95 South:
Nope. We have no evidence you don’t support him. You claim not to, but virtually everything you write about him either justifies or excuses him in some fashion. If you said something along the lines of “Look, I know the man’s a loathsome swine, but he’s useful in advancing some policies that I promote” I might believe you. But you don’t say that, at least not to my recollection.
It’s not just me. You given everyone here that impression.
@wr:
Is the Weekly World News still being published? No? Then maybe back issues at the library?
@95 South: Unlike several others here, and based on your previous statements, I didn’t think you came across as defending him. But I did take the plain meaning of what you said: he adores his supporters. And specifically, not that he loves the fact that he has these supporters, but that he actually loves them. That’s opinion, as is my belief that the exact opposite is true. But while I can offer tons of evidence that supports my opinion, I’m curious if you can offer a few things that supports yours?
I’ll give you two as a starting point. The first is that, anecdotally, he does seem to have casual conversations with the staff at his hotel. Not a lot, but occasionally. The second is that, unlike his mentor Roy Cohn, Trump does not have a reputation for verbally abusing working people, even ones that don’t work for him. Oh, he rips them off, and blames his poor choices on them*, but he doesn’t have a reputation for verbally abusing them.
FWIW, that last one is what makes me think he was at one time at least marginally intelligent. Unlike Leona Helmsley, he did seem to have an awareness of what the kitchen staff could do to his food and drink behing the scenes. I’ve always wondered just how much spit Helmsley ate and drank before she finally got carted off to prison?
*In the trades it is legend that back in the day when Trump still had his fathers money and actually built things, he would specify the lowest end on everything not visible and when a tenant complained about the lighting fixtures constantly blowing bulbs or the water taking five minutes to run hot, he would blame the contractors by name. This reputation was so enduring that when the Trump building was being built in Chicago the actual owners had trouble getting any of the local firms to do the work until they managed to prove that Trump’s only involvement was receiving money for the rights to his name.
Fred Willard has died. He was 86.
@MarkedMan: As I said, I think his relationship with McConnell demonstrates it. I think his entire relationship with the Republican Party demonstrates it. He maligned Cruz, and Cruz took it and moved on, and it looks like Trump did too. He treated Ryan like dirt until Ryan said he’d work together, and Trump then treated him fine until Ryan got sick of it all and left. He said horrible things about Pelosi and Schumer and really seemed to expect the three of them to work together as if it had never happened. He’s genuinely confused by partisanship.
He doesn’t seem to hold grudges in a conventional way. He does it like a narcissistic real estate magnate. You oppose me so I hate you, until the next thing comes along and we’re all friends. It’s just business, and that gives me the right to destroy you, but if you treat me with respect tomorrow we could get together for golf. I’m not describing a positive trait. It’s pettiness with a short attention span. Unfortunately it’s hard to prove because he’s always been so dominant that people who confront him don’t get a second chance, but if you look back on his real estate career and his schmoozing with influential people I think it’s visible.
@95 South:
You wrote this:
Are you referring to the time Pelosi and Schumer had been negotiating an infrastructure Bill with Trump for weeks, when Trump suddenly stormed out and refused to work with them anymore? You’re blaming that on Schumer, which is one more reason it looks like to everyone that you’re carrying water for Trump.
@Bill: J. C. Penney and Sears have been in trouble for some time. These are American icons and I feel that the federal government should send some form of help to keep them going; loans or tax breaks. We are losing too many retail stores. If this trend continues there will be few to buy from. Where are we going to find clothes, shoes, sports equipment, jewelry, and home items? Walmart? I am not into the purchase of clothing and shoes online. I want to see the quality and try it on. I also enjoy getting out into the shopping experience: it is real and a stress reliever for me. Shopping online is almost as boring as folding clothes. Sears and Penney’s need to quit the mall thing and go to outlet malls:smaller scale, more efficient.
This country has let too many historic and important things be torn down or closed up: train stations, historic homes, and neighborhoods (Atlanta). historic ships, stadiums.
@CSK: “Fred Willard has died. He was 86”
I was going to post that.
Grew up watching him as Jerry Hubbard on Fernwood 2Night and America 2Night. Twenty years later had the awesome pleasure to cast him in an episode and watch him playing my scenes. Just a genius.
Trump has 249 days left.
In other news, any time someone mentions Sears it reminds me of the douchebag Randroid who is helping wreck them, Eddie S Lampert. And that reminds me of Adam Lee’s humorous 160-something-part takedown of Atlas Shrugged here.
Texas has seen a steady rise in novel coronavirus cases and fatalities since reopening just over two weeks ago.
There are now 45,198 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. That is an increase of 1,347 cases from Thursday to Friday. Wow! If only somebody could have predicted this.
@95 South:
“He’s genuinely confused by partisanship…” Not just this sentence, but your whole post has the feeling of an extended excuse for Trump, as if you’re saying, “Sure, I know he acts like a swine, but he can’t help it. He’s a real estate guy, and they’re pigs. Please try to be more understanding of him.”
@Tyrell:
I am generally in favour of helping out businesses and their employees during a downturn like we are in now, if they are struggling temporarily because of the downturn. But Canadian and American consumers have made it clear that they do not want to shop at Sears and Penney anymore. If we wanted those stores to survive we would have shopped there.
And it pains me to write this. My father worked at Sears for 40 years, he lost part of his pension and his retiree health benefits when Sears went belly up. Luckily in Canada the government does backstop these things. But I don’t think it would make sense for the government to keep the stores open that people don’t want to shop in.
@95 South:
That isn’t loving someone back who loves you. It is acquiescence and obsequiousness. It is allowing Trump to dominate them (Cruz in particular).
@Steven L. Taylor: and?
@95 South: The google is your friend: Matthew Miller.
And you are just the kind of sucker trump “adores to take to the cleaners.” At what point are you going to wake up? I know, never. He tells you the lies you love to hear and you will let him pick your pockets clean as long as you get to look down on somebody else.
Have you noticed how so many supposedly tough strong manly men have allowed the trash in the White House to do this to them? It really is a disgusting sight to behold…women like Nancy Pelosi have far larger sets of balls than these chumps…
@Teve: A lot of them get miffed at potential candidates who haven’t worked their way up through the ranks. Being pure is more important than actual possible success.
(A lot of groups on the left also think this way as well.)
@OzarkHillbilly: I googled the name. It’s very common. I would have guessed he was the “Matthew Miller (journalist)” who came up on Wikipedia because he’s with the Center for American Progress, so I’m glad I didn’t guess. He was the Matthew Miller who came up on Twitter though. I looked through the first few tweets but didn’t see the one you quoted. His latest tweet is”Don’t know if it makes sense, but every time I hear Obama speak I’m surprised by how much I needed to hear from him.” So was I correct when I guessed he was in a liberal bubble?
Billionaire Eddie Lampert bought Sears in 2003 and transferred money from Sears to himself all the way to the bankruptcy.
Eddie Lampert Shattered Sears, Sullied His
Reputation, and Lost Billions of Dollars. Or Did He?
@95 South:
And you were the one that says Trump loves his supporters. But what you describe is not love.
This whole conversation started with you stating that CSK was wrong about Trump loving his supporters. Asyou may recall:
Perhaps if you had started with “Trump doesn’t love people, he dominates people” we could have had a shorter conversation.
One wouldn’t need to be in a liberal bubble to have tweeted that…when we look at the trash in the White House right now, a lot of people, not just liberals, would be glad to hear anything from Obama by comparison to realize that we have actually had a decent president recently…
@CSK: Fred Willard was also the voice of Swindle in one of the post-2000 Transformers reboots. Please enjoy his voice run through a vocoder.
https://youtu.be/X9WmO3Z07V4
(That series was odd in that it had a very light tone, but the overarching theme was about how different characters dealt with regret and the consequences of their past actions that hurt others.)
@95 South: The quote is not in a tweet. If you googled his quote you would have come across this article: ‘It eats him alive inside’: Trump’s latest attack shows endless obsession with Obama
As far as him being inside a “liberal bubble”, I wonder how it is you come to that assessment? From just a couple of things he said? Wow, from just a few statements you know all there is to know of him and his work. Oh wait a minute, he criticized trump.
Than again, what sentient being hasn’t?
Lynn Shelton died yesterday. I got to work with her several times. After we worked together, we became friends, and she gave me tremendous support during some rough times.
2020 sucks. Really hard.
Lynn was an great film and television director, but an even better human being. Sweet, smart, talented, beautiful, funny as f*ck. And did I mention beautiful? Smart? Yeah. We lost a good one yesterday. RIP Lynn.
https://variety.com/2020/film/news/lynn-shelton-dies-humpday-little-fires-everywhere-mumblecore-1234608626/
@Gustopher:
Thank you. Willard was a brilliantly funny man.
@EddieInCA:
I saw that. So sad. Lovely, talented woman. You’re right; we’re losing a lot of good people.
“OBAMAGATE!”
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…what a pathetic little man this trash in the White House is…
#WINNING
@Teve: The Kenyan Usurper is really getting under the Orange One’s skin…
@wr: I will take a look at the news reports from that area and talk to some people who live out there to see if they heard or saw anything.
That area had a lot of nuclear testing back in the 1950s and ’60s. There is also all the earth rattling from supersonic jet craft breaking the sound barrier. All of that could have made the area more unstable and increased fault line issues.
@Tyrell: IT doesn’t work like that. The amount of energy involved in just a slip along fault lines are such that you wouldn’t even notice 1000 planes flying by at mach 2…
Constructions projects rattle the earth more than sonic booms…