Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, May 20, 2021
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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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This is good:
http://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/05/road-political-violence/618929/
“Trump…understood that he did not need to explicitly call for violence in order to provoke violence.”
35 Republican House members joined with Democrats to approve a Committee to investigate the January 6th insurrection.
The bill is likely to die in the Senate.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/19/gop-mccarthy-jan-6-commission-489598
@Doug Mataconis: Yes, it is likely to die in the Senate.
Which is unconscionable. I’m still shaking my head at how far Republicans have fallen. The *US CAPITOL* was attacked, and they cannot muster the will or courage to determine what the failures were. Why? Because they’re afraid of their own culpability.
It’s disgusting.
@Jen:
They may well fear their own culpability, but they fear–equally or more–the wrath of the Trumpkins.
@CSK:
The biggest lie today’s Republicans willingly embrace as truth is that the party still holds to the values of Lincoln’s Republican Party. It does not.
Do you suppose any of the attorneys for the Capitol Hill insurrectionists will call Donald Trump as a defense witness on that grounds that he made the defendants lay siege to the building, assault various officers, and set up a gallows to hang Mike Pence et al?
@Jen;
I keep asking what they’re afraid of.
@Doug Mataconis:
I think it was Liz Cheney who mentioned that some of her colleagues who opposed Trump had received threats on their lives, and the lives of family members. That’s a legitimate fear.
A lesser fear is, of course, of being voted out of office for opposing Trump.
@Doug Mataconis: They are afraid they will lose the narrative that the election was stolen and, as a result, a huge chunk of their 2022 and 2024 GOTV campaign.
They are also afraid of activists in the 2022 primaries. They have fed lies to the lions and they do not want to be eaten by them when the lies are proven to be false nourishment.
Add “unarmed Idaho teacher” to the list of things that will stop a bad guy with a gun:
@Doug Mataconis: What is it they always say, “if you’re innocent you have nothing to hide?”
Tim Harford recently delved into the Dunning-Kruger effect in his podcast Cautionary Tales.
He tells the story of a bank robber who, when being arrested by the police, protested in bafflement and outrage, “But I wore the lemon juice! I wore the lemon juice!” This must have left the police quite baffled as well.
What gives?
This miscreant had heard that smearing lemon juice on one’s face renders one invisible to security cameras. He even tested it by smearing on lemon juice and then taking a polaroid of himself, in which he failed to appear.
Of course, he must have aimed the camera the wrong way (think back to old polaroid cameras), not to mention his vision was likely affected by the acidic fluid on his face.
The whole thing is funny. Harford mentions other stories, including the central one about the hijacking of an Ethiopian Airlines flight which ended with a crash landing on the ocean and 125 people dead.
That doesn’t seem so funny, does it?
I’ve begun to view stupidity as a disability of sorts, preventing people from fully functioning well in society and in their own lives. Besides, we all do stupid things from time to time, or, as Harford puts it, we all visit the Dunning-Kruger Clubhouse even if we’re not permanent members of the club.
@Mikey: Exactly. A lot of people are saying McCarthy does not want to testify under oath about his phone call with Trump, perhaps because it indicts Trump, perhaps because it also indicts McCarthy. There are the reports of members of congress giving tours ahead of 1/6. Many of them made inciteful statements ahead of 1/6. Yes they fear the Trumpy electorate. Yes they fear losing the Stolen Election issue. But some of them likely also fear criminal indictment. If the commission fails, as seems likely, I hope the Dems have the stones to hold committee investigations.
@Jen:
Every Democratic Senator should carry a recording of Mitch McConnell’s “leave it to law enforcement” speech on their* cellphone, so that the next time a Republican in Congress calls for another Benghazi or Cincinnati IRS or equivalent investigation, they can all play them simultaneously on the floor of the Senate at full volume.
*Yes, I could have made this plural to avoid the use of singular ‘they’, but I chose not to. :-b
Pelosi has already promised as much.
Trump has obtained a 1.2 billion dollar loan on the Bank of America building in San Francisco, which he co-owns with Vornado.
The lender has not been identified. Any guesses?
@Steven L. Taylor:
It’s ironic then the extensive way in which which the GOP spent their time falsely claiming that the voted was fixed and fraudulent appears to have cost them the Senate runoffs in Georgia and control of the Senate.
According to TPM, CNN, and the NYTimes, Allen Weisselberg, CFO of the Trump Org., has been under criminal investigation for months over tax matters.
@Doug Mataconis: But they hope to fix that by making voting harder.
@CSK:
You know what? Boo f*ckin’ hoo, the world’s smallest violin has a waiting list nine miles long to play for them. You can’t create a city-wrecking monster then cry when it stomps on your building.
Dems and liberals have been dealing with this for YEARS; in fact, AOC is dealing with this kind of harassment right now in public from her co-workers while the rest of them do nothing about it. There’s nuts running around the same building as them who let these “tourists” in and would gladly do so again while crooning through mailslots veiled threaten statements to “come out and play” on camera….. but hey, their pet leopard that’s been trying to eat everyone’s face suddenly might eat *their* face so concern!
I really don’t care that Repubs have discovered the unstable people they’ve been stringing along and directing towards their enemies might turn on them. You got a death threat over finally considering doing the right thing? There are people who get them daily for just existing and those who’ve been getting them because you painted a target on their back. No pity for cowards who choose to let this bill die or hold these rioters accountable because the consequences of their actions might come back to bite them; history will not be kinder to them than Vichy France, Quisling or any other collaborator who may have feared for their safety while others stood up.
Serious question:
Can Biden set up a presidential commission to investigate the January 6th Putsch, or would he need Congressional authorization for that?
Unserious question:
If prosecution of Trump fails in NY, what are the other 59 courts where this prosecution can be attempted before we give up?
Addendum to previous post: lawmakers get threats all the time – it’s part of working with the public since the public contains crazy people. Unless it’s a specific or actionable threat, what this means is that these lawmakers have never had to deal with the crazies turning on them before and therefore have been privileged to think of them as harmless or even allies. What happens when the crazies start threatening them over something else they don’t like such as vaccinations or the conspiracy theory du jour?
You gotta have a tough skin to work with the public. If your constituency is prone to issuing death threats, there’s a non-zero chance you’ll get one if they don’t like what you are doing and there’s no way you will not piss off somebody at some point. If this didn’t occur to you when running for office…. I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe talk to your liberal co-workers to get tips for how to cope?
@Steven L. Taylor:
Without the Big Lie, what would they have to justify that?
@dazedandconfused: It is a self-feeding loop, to a degree, yes.
Although the trope about “voter integrity” predates that Big Lie, so said Lie is not a precondition to pursue voter suppresion.
@CSK: TFG encouraged, rallied, supported, cajoled, implored, cheerleadered, and maybe even hectored and propelled the protest tourists of Jan 6, but he had no leverage on them that made/compelled them to act. And didn’t need any, either.
@Steven L. Taylor:
And the Big Lie is key to that effort.
Steve,
Ignore my last post, a duplication.
@Just nutha:
Indeed. And he knew that. Trump’s often been compared to the Mafia boss who hints or suggests what he wants done, but never says so explicitly.
This is why I’d love to see him brought into a courtroom and questioned by the defense attorney whose client is claiming that Trump made him do it.
At first police said Ronald Greene died in a car accident. After two years body camera footage made clear that he was the victim of clearly excessive police brutality. Greene was an African-American American man from Louisiana and another apparent of unjustified police violence.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/20/ronald-greene-louisiana-police-video/
The more I think about this refusal to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection, the angrier I get.
If anyone thinks for a millisecond that this is how the Republicans would act if those were, I dunno, pro-choice demonstrators or BLM protesters or whatever…honestly, what utter cowards most Republicans have become.
@CSK: Allen Weisselberg, CFO of the Trump Org., has been under criminal investigation for months over tax matters.
An old boss of mine, who was CFO at the time, used to say that CFO’s know where all the bodies are buried. He would have us scrambling for a day if we were off on our monthly close by a dollar, because, as he also used to say, “I’m the one whose signature is on the statements, so I’m the one who has to answer for any irregularities”. I hope that Weisselberg ends up having to balance jail vs. loyalty to Trump.
@senyordave:
Weisselberg knows Trump probably better than almost anyone else, so he must also know that Trump has zero loyalty to anyone but himself. I think that, given the chance to save his own skin, Weisselberg will cheerfully rat out Trump. I hope so, anyway.
@Jen: I have a vision of pantsless, giant Ken dolls wearing MAGA hats.
.
@OzarkHillbilly: there was also the school secretary some years back, in Georgia I think, who talked down a school shooter by empathizing with him, sharing about some of her own hard times and how she got through them.
@OzarkHillbilly: there was also the school secretary in Georgia some years back who talked down a school shooter by empathizing with him, sharing some of her own troubles and how she got through them.
@becca: Indeed, that is the image.
On a somewhat-related topic, I am wondering about death threats. Specifically, have they increased over the years?
This thought was started by KM’s comments above. I was an intern in a Congressional office, and one of my jobs was to open the mail. We received some really looney stuff, but nothing that I remember frightening me. The nutty stuff was typically a mix of handwritten and newspaper clippings, with really close writing that took up the entire page (margins included) and had lots of “I’m being watched” and “someone needs to investigate these dead birds on my lawn, I think they have been sent by the Soviets” sort of nonsense.
Now, almost every time I read an article about something even marginally controversial, I read about death threats, it seems.
Here’s a piece about business PPP loans from the NYT:
This is not normal, but it seems like it’s everywhere.
Has anyone else noticed this?
@CSK: Well, I know that if I were the CEO or Chairman of a bank, I wouldn’t admit that I loaned TFG money if I could avoid it. Just sayin’ again…
And certainly not that it was over a billion dollars.
Meeting Richard Pryor
Paul Mooney
1941-2021
RIP
@CSK: TFG is NOT a defense witness for the scenario you suggest; he’s the prosecution’s. As defense council, I’m not calling someone who will throw my client under the bus by refuting said client’s claim that he was influenced/encouraged/provoked/compelled.
And I don’t even have a bar card and know this is a bad idea.
@just nutha:
Nor I.
Small point: It was Trump who didn’t identify the lender.
@just nutha:
I know. But the defense gets to question him.
I can just imagine Trump under direct, cross, re-direct, and re-cross examination.
@Steven L. Taylor:
This is only partially true, no? The voter fraud narrative goes back decades.
Yes, The Big Lie was the result of the particular person exiting the WH. But I am skeptical it would have worked the way it has if a portion of the electorate hadn’t been primed to believe it.
I recall seeing a sign at a 2016 Trump rally that said, “Silent no more.” This is a group that has believed they are part of, and represent, the majority of Americans for a long time. If that is a core belief, there are few ways to reconcile that with election losses by conservatives. (It’s why you can easily find ‘refutations’ of the party re-alignment and non-rigorous historical revisionism everywhere.)
I also remember hearing a podcast from some dude in Spring of that year arguing that Democrats always cheat. That was a literal quote. Though he grew up in Chicago, so I suppose that characterization isn’t totally out of the realm of reality. But I think this is more reflective of politics in general, but particularly at the local and state levels than it is something unique about one of the parties.
This matters a lot more than just a piece of the puzzle–it is still one piece, just a large one. As you recently noted, partisan-affiliation is largely determined by family. (Religion as well.) As a generation or two goes by, the voter fraud and silent majority messages become unexamined assumptions for subsequent partisans. What was a messaging strategy used for GOTV, becomes woven into partisan identity at the level of truth.
The gradual exodus from the GOP of a certain type of conservative, not only what we would describe as moderate, has left a core of eschatological evangelicals, race identitarians, and authoritarians. (yes they overlap but are also distinct.)
The rest of those who voted for Trump likely voted purely on economic self-interest. That doesn’t just represent the ultra-wealthy. It can also be a frontline worker in the fossil fuel sector or a business owner. They may not agree with their extreme fellow Trump voters, but have faith that the system will contain his worse impulses and voting for him is good for their financial outlook.
@Jen:
Some believe that’s who the demonstrators were. But they see any Congressional inquiry as an attempt to bury that truth, establishing an official narrative in history.
@Kurtz:
Yes. When the insurrectionists started getting arrested, the MAGAheads suddenly switched their line from “those people were brave patriots” to “it was Antifa and BLM that did it!”
@Kurtz: Yes, the voter fraud thing has been around a long time, with its clearest manifestation being in voter ID laws. That was what I was referring to.
@Kurtz:
I know that this is true, but it literally makes no sense. None at all.
@Jen:
No, it doesn’t make sense to any rational person, but if you look at it from their standpoint, it does. What they claim will happen is that any Democratic commission will falsify the record, and instead of showing that it was BLM and Antifa who planned and carried out the insurrection, the commission will fabricate evidence to show that the miscreants were followers of Trump.
Make sense now?
@CSK: Nope, still baffling. But I’m not going to try the mental gymnastics required to understand, I’m over 50 and don’t want to pull anything. 😉
The *whole point* of having an agreement with Republicans–and Rep. John Katko (R) nailed it in his speech–was to ensure that didn’t happen.
Sweeping the entire thing under the rug is an absolutely cowardly move and that’s how it needs to be framed.
@Jen:
I was speaking from the standpoint of the insurrectionists and their supporters in MAGAland. I should have made that clear.
The Republicans in Congress are sweeping this under the rug for fear of offending a critical mass of their constituents.
@Jen: I have always assumed most of the threats come from within the gop, not just random trumpkins. Paul O’Neil said gop power brokers can be “very mean people” way back in 2004 and they ave been devolving ever since.
The one I recall from Georgia was a vice principal. Of course, there are also diner customers, little old ladies at political functions, fellow students, etc etc
@becca:
If I understand you correctly, and you mean actual death threats, I don’t think Mitch McConnell has anything to gain from threatening, say, Elizabeth Warren. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene, as loathsome as she is, isn’t calling for the death of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. MTG knows that could get her, personally, into trouble.
Do I think MTG would tacitly encourage the loonies in her fan club to threaten someone? Sure.
@Jen:
Of course it doesn’t make sense. I mean in two short years Kemp went from a Trump endorsement to deep state operative.
But we’re talking about a rationality mediated and filtered by a general stance spun into an identity. To me, it’s best described as a simulation of rationality focused on skepticism without a rigorous process for analysis.
In one sense, there are valid historical and psychological reasons to question whether a Congressional inquiry will produce a true account. Regardless of one’s position on Oswald, there are plenty of errors in the Warren Report. Ditto the 9/11 commission.
Conspiracists fall prey to a bunch of fallacies, but the most pernicious one is a sort of reverse appeal to authority. Rather than use an authority as a sole reason for accepting something, they use it as the reason not to doubt or question, but to reject. And in its place, build an alternative story by discounting any fact that doesn’t fit the story they want to to tell.
And again, this process is more about proving one is too smart to be fooled, too savvy to be a sheep than it is engaging with reality or seeking truth. It’s a hyper-specific version of a trap we all, to some extent, get caught in. And yes, it is fully on display daily here as well. But here, it’s milder and has less potential to incite violence.
There’s an ongoing debate on whether it is good and proper to punch Nazis. On the one hand, violence is bad, but on the other hand, engaging with Nazis and letting them have any sort of platform is legitimizing them, and arguably worse.
Q folks should definitely be added to this list of debatably ok punching. And the promoters of The Big Lie.
Basically, what I’m saying is that next time I visit my family, I’m probably going to punch someone.
How do I get better at punching?
@Jen:
Look at it this way, George Orwell made two errors:
1) Doublethink does not involve holding two mutually contradictory ideas at one, but many such ideas, however they contradict how many others.
2) It’s not necessary to rewrite the record of the past (what Winston’s job is), as the past is what the current doublethink says it is, and always has been, and always will be, no matter how often it changes.
Take up boxing.
As for punching Nazis, my old man and most of his brothers and BiLs did far more than that.
Well damn.
I hadn’t seen the older fellow* in Panera for a few days. He’s the guy who rides around town on his electric tricycle because he can’t drive a car any more.
“They won’t let me drive.” he once told me.
I didn’t think much of it since the weather has been raining off and on although I’ve seen him out in the liquid sunshine.
When I arrived at Panera the other day I saw a tricycle by the door but it wasn’t the yellow one he had been using.
“Did you hear about my bike?” he asked as he was maneuvering his walker by my table heading towards the exit.
“I see you have a new one.” I said.
“My bike was stolen. Right out of my carport!”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I said. “Did you have insurance?”
“I had to pay a deductible.”
And he headed out the door.
That might have been the longest conversation we have had since I met the guy last fall.
I know that there are lowlifes in this town but whoever did this is on my shitlist. Not that I will ever know who it is.
*He told me that he started at Sleepytown U in 1948. That was the year I was born. I’m 73. If he started college at 18 like I did that would make him at least 90 or 91.
Israel and Hamas agree Gaza truce, to be monitored by Egypt
Reuters
By my count this will be 5 hours from now.
I wonder how many corpses will be added til then.
@CSK: you understand me correctly. These people aren’t stupid and power brokers does not assume elected officials.
@Gustopher:
My grandma used to tell me “Always use an open hand on a closed mind.”
Failed to do that once. Age 11. IIRC, I was in a cast for about 2 months.
After that, I always used an open hand slap on closed minds. Or a stick. Car door once.
Of course, if you must punch, then remember to keep your thumb outside of your fist. Otherwise you may break yourself. Also, my experience is that you’re better to hit nerve bundles or soft tissue targets. Under the ribs, towards diaphragm.
Or just avoid the situation.
@flat earth luddite:
Pretty sure kicking is proper for Nazis, they lack the status necessary to merit punching.
Auda abu Tayi was a wise man. “I must leave before I stain myself with the blood of a fool.”
@CSK:
Publically as Marjorie Taylor Greene, QRP Congresscritter from Not-Sending-Their-Best, ‘Murica or even as a private citizen? Of course not, they’re still trying to see how much they can get swept under the rug before pushing boundaries again.
However I’d bet good money she’s got at least one anon alt or sockpuppet on Twitter, Gab or the wingnut refuge of choice where she vents out the real rage. Remember, she’s a con *and* a true believer, having been posting threatening cray-cray stuff well before getting into politics. As we saw with Trump, that’s a hard habit to kick so it’s a good bet she’s posting somewhere what she really wants to say in a way the law can’t pin on her (or so she thinks).
@KM: This is entirely likely and I am hoping that there are people out there dedicated to unmasking this.
@KM:
That’s why I added that she would tacitly encourage her fans to commit mayhem. Just as Trump does.
The woman doesn’t belong anywhere near Congress.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/20/oregon-liberal-greater-idaho-conservative-vote/
Why do only the Oregon nutjobs want to join Idaho? Can’t we get rid of Eastern Washington too?
Sebastian Junger has a new book out – “Freedom.” As with his last book – “Tribe” – it’s short and punchy, with a good ratio of nuggets to nonsense. An amuse bouche that I suspect will resonate:
@Teve:
But think how much you’ll save on broadband. And the vaccine was free!
@Gustopher:
Simpler just to generalize the debate: is it okay to punch someone who’s political philosophy you find repulsive? Because once punching is allowed it always works its way to this point — people disagree on what is repulsive, but there’s a general consensus on how to throw a punch so in practice people go for the now allowed technical solution of throwing a lot of punches.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Mine too. Though my dad said the Nazi’s were surprisingly good at punching themselves, and even was annoyed by TV shows like “Hogan’s Heroes” that made the Nazi’s look like weak fools.
Same applies to people who think its okay to punch communists. The real communists (who were fighting the real Nazi’s) were extremely tough and good soldiers too. Most people who talk about punching either wouldn’t last a minute against them — something to consider if we decide that its okay to punch people we find repulstive.
@Gustopher:
I’m pretty sure Idaho wants no part of cleaning up Hanford over the next 200 years.
@DrDaveT: They’re still trying to figure out how to deal with INEL. I haven’t ever seen any polling or anything on Idaho’s willingness to take Oregon rednecks. Did they ask, first?!
@Mister Bluster:
Paul Mooney was genius. He had a sort of inexorable flow to his stuff. B follows A, thus and therefore. He will be missed.
The Jayhawks Settled Down Like Rain off the insanely great album Hollywood Town Hall.