Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, April 21, 2022
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80 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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On the forum yesterday there was some discussion of Rod Dreher’s blog post about his wife filing for divorce. I decided to go read it and found it highly disturbing, especially this part:
This is a guy who literally believes in demon possession. Is he saying that his wife’s actions are intrinsically evil? What is he justified in doing to remove that evil? After all, this is a guy whose message on Putin and the Ukraine is that it’s a tragedy that the gays and trans forced God fearing Putin to slaughter millions.
@MarkedMan:
Well, Dreher did say that his wife had approved his statement, although perhaps not specifically the part about evil winning.
The references to nine years of torment are a bit extreme.
On Thursday mornings, I report to a different plant where I’m offline for most of the day. When I first get here, I pull out my laptop and do a couple quick tasks.
Dear gods, I hate the stupid touchpad on this thing! And all the damn “gestures” that Windows has tied to it. I keep opening and closing things, or moving them all over the screen, because my thumb glances across the touch pad.
Who the hell designs these things?
Gotta remember to bring a damn mouse.
[This completes our morning curmudgeonry.]
@Mu Yixiao: You can change most of those settings
@MarkedMan:
Or I can just remember to bring one of the eleventy billion mice I have laying around my house and have a much better experience. 🙂
@Mu Yixiao:
Laptops are great desktop replacements once you add a mouse, a keyboard, and a monitor.
@MarkedMan:
“evil has won” doesn’t mean possession (though in other unrelated posts he believes that can happen). I have no clue what his 9 years of struggles were about, his relatives in Louisiana made it difficult for both him and her (according to his post today), but there’s probably something else.
If I were to hazard a guess, like many prolific writers, he is consumed by his work. That can lead to work/life balance issues, and to pressure on a marriage, he vaguely writes about 9 years of torment.
His fixation with trans issues and “woke totalitarianism” in the past few years isn’t healthy either, but if anything (it may not be related at all), that’s probably an effect of his marriage troubles, not a cause.
@RMR:
Does Dreher have a new post on this today?
@Mu Yixiao:
Every Windows laptop that I’ve ever used, and I’ve not tried a very expensive ones, has had a virtually unusable touch pad. But I’ve had MacBooks and $400 Chromebooks and the touch pad is wonderful and much better than any mouse that I’ve used. The issue isn’t Microsoft, but the PC mfg and I don’t understand why?
@CSK:
I suspect his wife agrees but with a different villain.
From David Leonhardt’s newsletter this AM
Not only are Dems not getting credit for the American Rescue Plan, R’s that voted against it are touting it and getting more credit than Dems are. The canard that Dems are lousy at politics is true, they seem frequently surprised that the voters aren’t paying attention to what is happening in DC. Add to that how Federal money gets distributed in the US, makes it difficult to make the connection between what happens locally and what happened in DC.
The only Dem prez that I feel did a good job of tooting his own horn on programs was Clinton, Obama was horrible and Biden worse.
@Michael Reynolds:
Doesn’t it all seem overly dramatic too you?
@CSK:
Dreher needs to see a good therapist.
@Sleeping Dog:
Maybe it’s because I have seven generations of New England ancestry behind me, but all this public thrashing about with references to evil and torment strikes me as overly theatrical…and unseemly.
In my experience, there is always the other side of the story when it comes to marital disruptions (and to harmonious marriages as well). Mr. Dreher has an outlet for his voice. The wife has no such opportunity for getting her story out, or perhaps she simply doesn’t want to air their dirth laundry in public which I respect.
@Sleeping Dog:
I think the Republicans (in the past) did too good a job forcing the Democrats to be defensive about government and forced them to make so much of the necessary, legitimate and decent about government to be hidden. The only bright spot I see in the Republicans overturning Roe, or going to war with Disney is it is going to force a lot of this stuff out into the open. It was all well and good when we were beating up on the Blacks, the Gays, the Transgendereds, but lets see how it bites them in the ass when their daughter dies because of an ectopic pregnancy. When their nephew kills themselves because of bullying. When their property taxes go up by 100 % in florida to pay for Disney.
I think we’ve done too good a job of ordering our country in such a way as to coddle middle class White people so that they don’t have to think about a lot of consequences. I’m all for shoving those consequences in people’s faces.
I’m either tired or losing it, or maybe just in the mood to laugh. This thread had me in stitches.
@Sleeping Dog:
My Mac vs. PC touchpad experience mimics yours but with this important caveat: “… as they are set up when they come out of the box.” I don’t change my Mac touchpad (other than to experiment with some new feature that I ultimately don’t leave turned on) but PC touchpads are configured so as to, say, do something dramatic to the whole desktop because it thought you triple tapped or because they have enabled special commands for when you touch the extreme corners or drag a window across the whole surface. So I usually go in first thing and turn all of that power user stuff off.
@CSK:
Relative to the south, even the most religious New Englanders are toned down about evil, satan, etc. Probably came from shedding the Puritan beliefs.
@Beth:
You’re right about the Rs, particularly Reagan doing a good job in tarring government, but Dems also surrendered. But the problem Dems have in framing their programs and policies in terms that are meaningful to the typical voter preceded Reagan. It would be convenient to blame Carter, but he emerged long after technocrats and academics overtook the parties legislative apparatus.
The classic example of the failures of Dem communication was during the 2000 presidential debates on the issue of taxes. Bush stood up at the podium and said, I’m going to lower you taxes. While Gore prattled on about targeted tax cuts and social security lock boxes. Even if you agreed with Gore and understood the underlying rational, his presentation made no sense. Bush’s statements were simple, easily understood. For a viewer who was distracted by life around him, could reflect after the debate, yup, Bush is going to lower my taxes, I don’t know what Gore will do.
At the end of the day, the problem isn’t what R’s do to our poor victimized Dems, it the Dems inability to communicate beyond a highly educated and attentive voter base. Off hand, today Bernie can communicate and when she is on, so can Warren. Though she usually screws it all up by reverting back to cultural jargon, like Latinx or listing various Dem communities of interest/identity groups, rather than simply we want these policies to benefit all Americans.
@Slugger:
He actually brings that up in his statement and promises that he therefore wont give his side of the story in his public writings. I give that promise a week, at the outside.
@MarkedMan:
Typically, I leave the power stuff on, but PC touch pads seem too sensitive. On Macs and Chromebooks, I usually have the various acceleration sensitivity settings turned up and everything is fine. On PC’s I need to do the opposite and turn them down. It’s a hardware issue.
@MarkedMan:
@Sleeping Dog:
Because I have a goal of making my life as difficult and as absurd as possible, I use a Macbook running Windows as my primary business computer. For the most part, this has worked out well, if a little weird.
Until recently, when the battery exploded and the whole battery/keyboard/trackpad had to be replaced. Now, the whole thing is so sensitive that just barely touching the laptop causes the cursor to move around and click things. I’ve tried turning the sensitivity down and that has done nothing. I’ve basically resigned myself to this hell, cause, that’s what I do.
@MarkedMan:
I have one personal laptop, which I got seven years ago. I’ve used the touchpad once, while setting up the mouse.
Last year for some reason a manager asked the company to give me a laptop. I had to use the touchpad because I had no extra mouse handy. Between the lack of mouse, no number keypad, and the tiny screen (not that my desktop screen could ever be accused of being big), it’s about as useful as those submarine screen doors no one seems to want.
I thought of simply transferring monitor, keyboard, and mouse from desktop to laptop. But the monitor has no HDMI port and the laptop only has that. I asked for a monitor, and was told it wasn’t necessary because the laptop has a screen.
So, the laptop now is busily collecting dust somewhere.
There’s a lot of buzz about Netflix, due to having had their first loss of subscribers in history.
I don’t particularly care about any streaming service. I hold them while I use them, and let them go once I no longer do. For instance, I got Apple a couple of weeks ago, and chances are I’ll drop the subscription once I’m done with “For All Mankind.” I figure We Crashed can wait until season two of Severance is up.
Currently I know of nothing in particular on Netflix that would be worth subscribing. I want to see Don’t Look Up, but that can wait. Most other things I want to watch moved off Netflix (Discovery, Rick and Morty), or were cancelled (Final Space).
The actual business streaming model is for IP owners to set up their own streaming service, whether they also make shows and movies available on open air TV, cable, or theaters. This leaves Netflix in the position of having to create its own content to replace what others no longer let them have. and this is complicated by who owns what rights where in the world. For instancie, Picard is on Amazon Prime in Latin America, but Discover is on Paramount+.
@CSK:
Why yes, yes he does. And it is exactly as bonkers as you’d expect it to be.
@Jon:
I read it, or rather skimmed it, and after all the “suffering” and “torment” of the past nine years, he’s suddenly calm and joyous again?
Recipients of this year’s Profile in Courage Award, to be presented this May 22 at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston:
Volodomyr Zelenskyy
Liz Cheney
Michigan Secy of State Jocelyn Benson
Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers
Fulton Co. election worker Wandrea Moss
@Beth: if this happened as a result of a repair done by Apple they will cover it.
@CSK: I would not be surprised if Dreher self-flagellates or wears a cilice belt. He has always been on the edge and being rejected by all sides of his family (regardless of fault) had to be difficult. Engaging in Christ-like suffering has to be comforting.
@CSK: I am not sure that
Is evocative of ‘calm and joyous’ to me, but different strokes 😉 Also what is it with the right and just over the top sexual innuendo these days? Get a room.
@Jon:
Well, at the very end he says something about feeling happy and “light as a feather.”
@CSK: Rod is large, he contains multitudes.
@MarkedMan: @CSK: for someone who has said he’s not going to talk about what happened Rod certainly blethers on a lot in public, doesn’t he? I I I me me me….
I used to think it was fiction writers who were “inveterate exhibitionists” (sardonic self-accusation since I used to write a lot of fiction myself) but now I’m tagging so-called “non-fiction” writers with that term.
For gossake, go and dump all of this angst on a therapist and stop spewing it out at an unprotected public.
From Charlies Sykes’ column this AM
Dems, the problem is us.
Are Neil or Harvard Law around?
I’m curious about your takes on the Margie 3-Names 14th Amendment hearing to be held tomorrow.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
Margie is melting down over the prospect.
@MarkedMan: My translation from Evangelical/Fundamentalist into English is that the failure of a marriage is an example of evil winning. I don’t that particular statement should be over-interpreted. He likely sees his divorce as a massive, massive failure on his part since he likely thinks that the only true relationship he can have with a woman is marriage. Plus, some of the stuff noted in the thread yesterday about how he met her underscores he doesn’t exactly have a healthy notion of romantic partnership.
I will agree that he has a thoroughly unhealthy mental state, or so it seems to me from a layman’s perspective at a distance. He strikes me as someone who profoundly longs for an explainable meaning to life (hence the trips from religious position to religious position) and no doubt saw marriage as part of a great plan that he has now failed at.
@CSK:
Are you sure she’s melting due to the prospect and not because someone spilled some water on her?
@Steven L. Taylor:
But Dreher does assure us (repeatedly) that his wife is equally to blame for the collapse of the marriage.
I really am dumbfounded by the extravagance of his anguish.
@grumpy realist:
And yet many folks seem quite keen to read his nonfiction. And then talk about it. A lot. Would that all writers (aspiring and actualized) had such a devoted audience. 🙂
@Kathy:
😀
@CSK: I find myself torn on this type of question. I was raised in a family that believed in demonic powers, possession, divine healing, and the rest. And I believe that those things may well happen, but I’m not sure that they happen here (though there may be a connection between demonic powers and various manias, schizophrenia, OCD, the list may go on). Not much demonic activity because secular defaults make it unnecessary, and advanced medical practices can even successfully treat leprosy (which seems to have been the big item among Biblical ailments). So yeah, I can see Dreher seeming a little extreme. I know I don’t identify events in my life as being driven by the forces of evil, but as a Calvinist, I see “evil” as one of the default settings. So…
@grumpy realist:
You dare advise him about the beam in his eye when there may be a mote in yours?
I’ve been aware of Dreher for years, but never bothered to read anything he’s written. I’ve now read two of his articles in two days and…the man is utterly exhausting. He’s almost impossible to read.
I’m not a native New Englander, but I share the regional distaste for emoting excessively. Even in writing.
@MarkedMan: Once upon a time, I had a trackball pointer device that I liked very well and had a computer for which I purchased an auxiliary touch pad which also was easy to use. These days, fine motor control deterioration has overruled to the point that nothing works well. On my laptop, I tape a card (business size works fine) over the touchpad so that the heel of my hand brushing the pad doesn’t trigger an event. Works okay.
Even if I have a mouse connected to the laptop, though, the system requires pressing Ctrl-F something to disable the touchpad. Too much effort to keep track of.
@just nutha: @Jen:
Yes. All this emoting seems way, way over the top to me. It’s not that I find it insincere; that very sincerity is one of the things I find so disturbing about it.
@Kathy: “So, the laptop now is busily collecting dust somewhere.”
Well, at least it still has a job. 😉
@CSK: As a divorced person myself, I kind of get the sensation he’s referring to. Once “the other shoe has dropped, a sense of relief comes from the knowledge that resolution will happen. Some people feel sorrow at the separation, too, but I didn’t. Sure, the relationship dies, but everything dies eventually. Meh.
@Scott: Despite reading him for years, I don’t know the details: why did his family reject him?
@Steven L. Taylor:
I missed this. What was unusual about how they met?
@MarkedMan:
I think it was because he became an intellectual and rejected their way of life. And his father seems to have been contemptuous of him when he was growing up for being a “sissy.”
@MarkedMan:
From Jen yesterday.
@MarkedMan: From a WaPo profile:
I suppose someone might find it all romantic, but that sounds more than a bit weird to me, and in some ways it is a shock they made it 19 years.
And I read all of this from the perspective of someone well versed (no pun intended) in American evangelicalism with its very stringent views on marriage and sexuality.
@Steven L. Taylor: Plus just seems of a piece with what seems to be an intensity from Dreher that is not healthy in a variety of ways.
@Jon: @CSK:
Uh, just got back from a doctor’s appointment, and decided to try reading His Wackiness.
Whoa.
My gosh.
Do you expect me to believe that people actually PAY him to write this drivel?
And finally, what on earth is he smoking, and how do I stay upwind from the secondhand smoke?
@Steven L. Taylor:
Dreher’s can be the kind of behavior that has women seeking restraining orders.
@grumpy realist: I can tell that you’ve never experienced old school Fundamentalist testimony services. Dreher’s comments on his divorce are completely on point for style.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
I hope all went well for you at the doc’s.
I don’t think Dreher’s smoking anything. He’s just naturally that way. Maybe his wife couldn’t stand it any longer.
@just nutha:
And such a cushy job it is. It doesn’t even have to wake up.
Of course, the pay sucks.
It’s déjà vu all over again at CERN. The last time they saw something odd before an upgrade, and shortly afterwards the Higgs boson turned up. Now this.
But, really, if they’re not going to find out how to make the quantum black hole that destroys the world, is there any point in going on?
Also from that Dreher piece:
Additionally, he lives on Twitter and the internet, not exactly sequestering himself away into a faith community.
Indeed, since he tried this Benedict Option he has drifted toward Orban’s Hungary and spent a lot of time there. It is all very odd, but consistent with his bio, to seemingly commit hard to something, only to then later move on to some other committment.
@Steven L. Taylor:
And Dreher was left-wing in college; he invited Abbie Hoffman to speak at LSU.
@Scott: Thank you. Cilice. I was trying to remember that word a few days ago. In the context of Dreher. I skimmed his column today (life’s too short to read his columns). I’m not sure what to make of all that laying down his sword stuff. Is it Freudian and he’s going celibate? Maybe regretting the lack of infidelity. Or maybe retiring from writing?
Maybe he’ll move to Hungary and become an Orthodox monk.
On deck this week a mix of lentils, beans, chorizo, rice, and chicken, seasoned with black pepper, paprika, cumin, and cilantro.
I first cook the rice separately. Then saute onions and add chorizo, pepper, and and paprika, setting aside about half. I add chicken broth and bring it to a boil, then add the lentils, some chopped cilantro, and cumin. When the lentils are done, I mix in the rice, the rest of the chorizo, the shredded chicken, and a can of beans. I keep simmering until most of the liquid is consumed, then add some more chopped cilantro.
I like it because it’s easy and requires minimal prep. The rice pretty much gets done while I slice the onions and chop the cilantro.
Stumbled across an explanation of Jared’s 2 billion from KSA. Vicky Ward has a substack post claiming Prince Mohammed bin Nayef planned a “legal” coup against King Salman and MBS. She says MBN had been tight with the CIA and bounced the plan off them. She says Jared found out and ratted the plot out to MBS. You may remember a bizarre story about MBS arresting several of his extended family, supposedly to squeeze them for money. They were apparently the coup plotters. You may also remember the intel community became adamant about Jared not getting a security clearance.
Vicky Ward is a new name to me, don’t know if she has a track record. Haven’t seen anyone else corroborate the story. But it does seem to fit. And if true, holy shit.
@Steven L. Taylor:
No. He does remind me of all the people who were going to go Galt a few years ago. So go, already.
@gVOR08:
Vicky Ward is a British-born American investigative journalist. I don’t know how reliable she is, but I’m inclined to buy the Kushner story. It sounds like something he’d do.
@Steven L. Taylor: That was exactly the section that I posted yesterday, it sent up a huge red flag for me.
That is bizarre behavior.
@gVOR08:
Worth looking into.
For one thing, it would be odd for Jared to just let MBS know about a coup out of the goodness of his heart, or for MBS to compensate him for it years later. It would make more sense if he sold MBS the info in exchange for money (and not necessarily only $2 billion), and that he has other info he can sell to someone else if MBS doesn’t pay up.
And what did Benito know about this? Did he also get paid?
@CSK:
I read the full thing. Near the end he talks about going home to “share” this peace with his wife. I’ll be reading the Baton Rouge police blotter for a while, I expect to see her name on it soon.
@CSK: As the saying goes (attributed to Churchill), “A young man who isn’t a socialist has no heart; an old man who is a socialist has no brain.”
Sadly, Winnie didn’t account for the possibility for an old man to not be a socialist and also not have a brain.
@gVOR08: The key is the “sheathing my sword in the rock of faith” part. It probably doesn’t mean anything tangible to him (the Benedict Option thing turns out more metaphysical and idealistic than tangible, after all), but it will resonate with the Christian segment of his audience.
@gVOR08: Which results either in Bob the Angry Flower reactions or bears in your kitchen.
@Flat Earth Luddite: I finally got home where I could open the essays and read them. The whole thing is incoherent to me. I’m certainly no expert on relationships, but the idea of two people wanting to keep their relationship together and not being able to figure out how doesn’t make sense for me. If it makes sense for others, well and good–no dog in this fight and not buying one to join it (or borrowing one of Michael Vick’s either). “God wants our marriage to fail so we (or only I?) can serve him better.” (???) I’ve clearly missed something in the years I’ve spent reading the Bible and pondering what it means. I got nuthin’.
Rod, go in peace and serve the Lord. But GO!
@CSK:..And Dreher was left-wing in college; he invited Abbie Hoffman to speak at LSU.
I attended an event at Southern Illinois University that featured Abbie Hoffman in 1969 (?). I was born in 1948 and would have been 21. Hoffman, born in 1936 would have been 34. Dreher, born in 1967 would have been 2 years old.
According to WikiP Dreher graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from Louisiana State University in 1989 at age 22. Hoffman died in April of 1989 at age 52.
I am confused. When and in what capacity did Dreher invite Hoffman to speak at LSU?
@Mister Bluster:
Yeah, I know. That puzzled me, too. I read it in–I think–a New Yorker article. The dates seem way off. Hoffman was hiding out when he died, wasn’t he? Maybe Dreher tried to invite him.
@CSK: Or we’re dealing with a game of telephone and someone once described Dreher as “the sort of guy who would invite Abbie Hoffman” which got picked up and misinterpreted?
@grumpy realist: I decided to google this.
First, here is Dreher himself stating he met Hoffman: https://twitter.com/roddreher/status/1285013007337234433?s=20&t=dZ0ugQCXXMqRr0whAzuBVg
Second, there is a New Yorker piece that claims:
@Steven L. Taylor:
Yes, that’s the New Yorker piece to which I was referring.
@CSK: I figured.