Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, December 5, 2023
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65 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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From the Sun-Sentinel–
Big mistake for Florida Democrats to cancel presidential primary | Editorial
Brilliant. Put a stop to your primary and give the other party an advantage in other races.
@Bill Jempty: The Florida DEM party is a mess, but getting on the primary ballot is the hopeful candidate’s job, and Marianne Williamson, Dean Phillips, and Cenk Uygur blew it. From the Tampa Bay Times(behind a paywall but you can read it at the bottom of the page by scrolling up):
Williamson is a perennial wannabe candidate desperate for attention of any kind, Dean Phillips probably wasn’t even a declared candidate* when the Florida DEMs had their executive committee meeting, and to add to the stupidity of all their whining, Uygur isn’t even eligible, because he was born in Turkey (I forget how they spell it now, corrections welcome) and both his parents were Turkish (according to his Wiki page).
* he declared on 10/27
@OzarkHillbilly: How unserious were these candidates? They didn’t know they had missed the deadline until they read it in the newspaper. My god, even the hapless Libertarian and Green Parties have figured out that getting on the ballot in all the states is job number one (although they rarely manage to do so). It’s kind of a sign as to whether a candidate is just grifting or seriously contending for the race.
I’ve got nothing good to say about the Florida Democratic Party, which seems to be a hot mess full of corrupt candidates (It is Florida, after all…) but Bill, you seem to be saying that the Party, with a sitting President running, was somehow obligated to knock on fringe candidates doors and remind them the deadline to file was looming. In the real world, there is no serious opposition to the sitting President, which is absolutely normal, and the eternal gadflies and grifters couldn’t get their sh*t together in order to qualify.
So as I was pumping gas into my Subaru this morning I thought the pump was running slow, until I realized Gas was down to $3.08*. I assume the media will be all over this? I’m not a regular TV watcher so any advice on where I can tune in to catch the MSM take on this good news?
*Adjusted for inflation, this is actually a little less than I paid for a gallon of gas in 1976, the first time I ever filled up a tank. (Er, bought 5 dollars worth of gas.)
@MarkedMan: When I filled up the other day, it was $2.98 a gallon. I wonder what ever happened to all the Biden “I did this” stickers?
@MarkedMan: Here in San Antonio, gas dropped to $2.39, now back up to $2.59. Price of a barrel of oil (WTI) has dropped (as of yesterday) to $74.07. Which is why OPEC is discussing cutting production again.
And no, there is no mention in the media right now. Wait until the layoffs start happening and the drilling rigs get put in storage and then you’ll see discussion.
Well, the big zeitgeist story this morning is anchored by an entire issue by The Atlantic entitled:
If Trump Wins
Here are the articles:
I haven’t read them, primarily because they are behind a paywall but anticipate a large discussion.
My big question is this: Trump himself is not that competent. I want to know who is the second tier, the competent enablers, the cockroaches, the termites, that actually execute the madness. I want them to be stopped even more than Trump.
@MarkedMan:
“I assume the media will be all over this?”
You mean, like they are all over this week’s national polls, showing Biden with small leads, in exactly the way they were over the prior polls with Trump leads? You are expecting too much from the so-called liberal media.
@Scott:
Because I have a “free” subscription to some Atlantic articles daily, I read the pieces by Coppins, Frum, Gilbert, and Packer. Disturbing, to say the least.
@MarkedMan:
I’ll believe that the No Labels bunch — which claims not to be a party — is actually serious when I start reading stories about their ground game in various states to get a candidate with independent status on the ballots. In many, it’s a non-trivial effort.
Currently in jail, awaiting sentencing. If I had punched a cop, no doubt I would have gotten a solid beating.
I tried to interview ChatGPT yesterday for a few minutes. It kept insisting it has no personal life or interests, it is a large language model, and kept asking how it could help.
The last time it added an exclamation point. So I said I didn’t mean to annoy it. It replied it wasn’t annoyed and everything’s cool, and could it be of any help.
Not a very good interview subject.
Being middle aged with money is much more fun than being young and poor, I’m discovering. The trick is to do all the things you said you’d do as a kid (not young adult, kid) and do it enthusiastically. Especially if it’s things you wouldn’t have done in your teens and 20s because you were too cool for school.
Related, I’m attending a convention for Magic the Gathering in Chicago in February. I’ll be in costume of some sort. There’s a murder mystery dinner at the House of Blues, and I’ve forced my three travelling pals to buy tix.
Am I the only one whose posts always start in moderation? If so, is there something I can do about getting that fixed?
@Neil Hudelson:..Being middle aged with money is much more fun than being young and poor,..
If you say so…
@Mister Bluster:
Turns out money + middle age = access to waaay better weed.
@MarkedMan:
When I put “gas prices falling” into google news search, I get a bunch of recent(ish) hits. Local, regional, and national outlets. To be fair, you asked about tv coverage, which I don’t know how to gauge.
@Bill Jempty:
Still waiting for you to tell me what Biden has done to show he’s not capable of doing the job in a second term. Yesterday you wrote:
What are the serious questions about his ability to do the job today, yet alone 5 years from now?
Why do you, like so many who claim to want “another choice”, refuse to answer that question?
@EddieInCA: Meanwhile they completely ignore the fact that if the other choice (and there is only one other choice), Trump, is elected, he will be the oldest person ever elected to the Presidency.
In far worse health.
And with 90-something felony indictments (by then some will be convictions).
As it turns out, the Very Serious people are disingenuous.
@Neil Hudelson:..waaay better weed.
No argument here.
When I was allegedly in college in the ’60s, if I could scrape $20 together ($175 today)
for a lid (1 0z.), didn’t matter if it was Acapulco Gold or Rantoul Rag I had to roll a fat joint and choke the whole thing down for a decent buzz. Can’t say enough about today’s smoke. I should have majored in Plant Science.
Better living through chemistry!
@EddieInCA: To agree with you/amplify Bill’s quote (emphasis mine):
One of my self-assigned missions in life is to point out the Democratic Party (or the Republican, fpr that matter) as an institution does not select the candidates. Biden is running of his own volition and the fact that no one else of consequence is running (or, in the case of Florida, even those not of consequence) is part of a broader collective action issue, not because The Democratic Party is doing anything.
There is no central candidate selection process in the parties. Neither the national party nor the state party has any control of consequence over this process. Our parties are weak and decentralized.
And, further, the incumbent president is going to get renominated for a host of reasons, not the least of which being that primary voters are almost certainly going to vote for that incumbent since they have the highest probability of winning versus a newbie (which is also part of the reason that Trump is running away with the GOP nomination race to date).
If there is one place to save taxpayer money it is here:
Powerful members of Congress are dead-set on killing UFO transparency
It is bad enough there is an outlet for cranks to testify but that we have “Key Members” delusional enough to find these cranks “credible”.
@OzarkHillbilly:..Currently in jail, awaiting sentencing.
In a kangaroo court…
New Uvalde school shooting documentary and investigation reveal details of law enforcement’s flawed response
The follow on article:
“Someone tell me what to do”
@Scott:
Outer Space Aliens…
BRING ME ONE!
@Scott: Re: TheHill and the UFO kook they give seemingly endless editorial space to. I assume there is an SOE algorithm somewhere that shows combining political gossip with Weekly World News level UFO quackery is a winner but, sheesh!
Or maybe it is funded by some billionaire hobbyist who has a nephew who’s a UFO crank?
@Mister Bluster: …and you win the Internet for today
@Neil Hudelson:
As a kid, your dream was to come to Chicago during the absolute worst month? The month where we want to murder each other except don’t cause the weather sucks so bad?
Seriously though, I’m constantly harassing my middle aged friends who have decided that once they turned 35 life was over and all they could do is sit at home and watch their kids. Like, you don’t have to go to raves every weekend like my crazy ass, but I’m living my teenage dreams. Which reminds me, I need to spend some time today figuring out which pasties I’m going to wear with the hot pants I’m wearing to Elrow in a week or so.
Hope springs eternal. And yes, I hope you are right.
@Mister Bluster: Dammit! I missede that! ANd it is oh so obvious! Bad Hillbilly, bad!
@MarkedMan:..win the Internet…
Despite the 15 minutes of fame I will try to remain humble. Besides I still have to go to the laundromat today.
@SKI: Not sure what the deal is; it seems sporadic. It was happening to my own comments a few weeks back—particularly if I posted from my phone. It seems to have trained itself to stop doing that.
@SKI: @James Joyner: Sometime back, I had a similar issue but it was more hit and miss. 1 or 2 one day, than none for 2 or 3 days, then it would happen again, followed by no problems for several days. It has not been problem for a while now.
@EddieInCA: How about this for a start.
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/4075227-we-need-a-serious-conversation-about-joe-bidens-brain/
@Mister Bluster:
It’s not often that I miss the downvote option, but…
@Bill Jempty: Biden has a stutter, and concentrating to cover it has always resulted in some word flops. It’s been going on for years, and isn’t a sign of anything.
And then there’s this in the article:
Biden’s kid died from cancer that he is convinced came from being exposed to god knows what at burn pits in Iraq. It’s something that he was very proud to get legislation ending the practice, and getting additional aid to other soldiers experiencing health issues who were stationed near the burn pits. He has treated exposure to the burn pits like any other injury that one might have gotten in that war.
The Hill is providing no quotes for Biden saying his kid was killed in Iraq. If Biden said that Beau died while liberating Felujah or something, that would be relevant, but it is far, far more likely it was Biden saying that Beau died from wounds (received) in Iraq.
It’s a cheap shot by The Hill. It’s a low shot. It’s a bit disgusting.
@Bill Jempty: If you wanted someone else on the ballot in Florida’s Dem Primary you should have gotten off your ass, gathered signatures, and qualified for the ballot.
You didn’t. Neither did anyone else. Classic tragedy of the commons.
@Mister Bluster: I don’t trust a kangaroo court to convict a kangaroo accused of assaulting a human.
As noted, George Bush stumbled a lot when speaking in public. No one claimed that meant he was demented. If you have to do public speaking a lot you will say the wrong stuff sometimes. A much better measure of a person’s functionality is how well they perform in smaller groups or 1:1. That is hard to sort out since the PR guys will keep bad stuff hidden. However, Biden does have meetings occasionally with leading Republicans. Does anyone believe they would willingly participate in covering up to aid Biden? That doesnt seem believable.
Plus, you dont need to run faster than the lion, just faster than the other guy. Trump is essentially the same age. His speeches are full of word salad. It’s hard to tell what he means but his fans will helpfully interpret. Trump also gets lots of dates, places, names wrong in his public speaking. Again, I would not use this as proof of decompensation but he does have a history of also doing bizarre stuff on Xitter in the past and Untruth Social. Those are errors not made under pressure. The constant lying seems like confabulation to me and his extreme emotional lability also are of concern.
All that said, I am leery of diagnosing people from afar. What I would say is that if you have concerns about Biden, and I think there is some validity to those concerns, they you should have at least the same level of concerns about Trump. Since I dont think that in meetings where they make policy decisions saying Iraq instead of Ukraine will lead to bad outcomes and I do think that extreme emotional lability will lead to bad decisions I will worry more about Trump.
Steve
@Bill Jempty: Written by Becket Adams? T. Becket Adams? Would that be this T. Becket Adams? Writer of such nuanced articles like, The Left must get its violence under control. It’s not going to like the counterreaction , Everything the social justice crowd told us was a lie, and Democrats forget there are consequences in politics?
He seems like a nice guy, totally unbiased. Somebody who would never lie about old Joe and his encroaching feebleness. We can surely trust him to give us the straight dope.
Bill, the google is your friend.
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks, I was JUST going to chime in on that. Becket Adams is not a serious journalist providing a thoughtful opinion. He’s a partisan hack who has spent much of his time working for the Washington Examiner, FFS.
@Jen: As soon as I saw he wrote for the Washington Examiner, I knew exactly what kind of hack he is.
eta: and it’s kind of telling that The Hill left that part out of his bio.
@OzarkHillbilly:
@Jen:
I always look at opinion articles to see where the person is coming from. It helps to figure out if their opinion is worth a damn. When I clicked through and found that Gregg Gutfield was a proud alumni of his organization I knew his opinion was worthless.
@Bill Jempty:
Only one problem: The situation you’re describing isn’t a function of party big wigs thwarting the voice of the people, it’s a function of voters being too lazy and foolish to realize that their vote matters every time. Only gonna show up if the presidency is on the line? You deserve Republican government.
Or, to paraphrase von Clausewitz, Florida will never become a great state because Democrats get the government they deserve.
@MarkedMan:
@OzarkHillbilly:
@Scott:
Meanwhile in the UK, the $/gallon equivalent (converting from £/litre) is about $7.28.
@OzarkHillbilly:
In jail? Are they worried it might jump bail?
@Bill Jempty: I find it hard to take seriously a writer who focuses only on Biden’s mental fitness but ignores Trump’s. And Bill, honestly, you haven’t answered the question: what has Biden done that you feel demonstrates incompetence?
@Bill Jempty:
Weak Bill. Damn weak. The author is a right wing wacko who has spent his life in Conservative politics.
Be better. This is weak, even for you.
Additionally, Trump has been much worse, recently, in terms of verbal gaffes and physical oddness.
@OzarkHillbilly: Not if other people are going to use it to check his work it isn’t, no.
@JohnSF: Sure. But doesn’t the UK have policies in place that seek to make petrol expensive enough to discourage people from hopping in their car to drive across the street for a pack of Player Navy Cuts, for example? We don’t. We’ve fought long and hard in this country to keep our right to drive anywhere and everywhere unrestricted. We need cheap gas, we deserve cheap gas, and we will keep doing everything in our power to preserve our right to live wherever we want and drive wherever we want.
@JohnSF:..In jail? Are they worried it might jump bail?..
I hereby share today’s internet award with our cousin across the pond.
(JohnSF: If you have to report this to the Crown for tax purposes I will gladly hold it for you.)
@Beth:
Eh, I live not too far south from Chicago so I’m used to the weather, and this’ll be indoors. If the convention organizers want to move it to some place like Santa Fe or Oahu, however, you won’t hear me complaining!
@JohnSF:
One fine day the zoo superintendent comes in and finds the kangaroo outside its enclosure. He ledas it back inside, tears down the fence, and builds a taller one.
Next day, again the kangaroo is out. so again he makes a taller fence. This happens two more times. after that, the koala next door asks the kangaroo, “how tall do you figure they’ll make your fence?”
“I figure it will reach the Moon if they keeping leaving the gate open.”
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Oh yeah. Most of the cost is tax.
Roughly 65%
Of £1.44/L you have 59.5p of fuel duty; then you get 20% VAT on the base price of the petrol, and in addition 20% of the fuel duty.
Yes, you pay tax on the tax, LOL.
It certainly encourages fuel efficient cars.
As in Europe, high fuel taxes drive the popularity of EV’s, hybrids, diesels, and small high-efficiency petrol engines.
Anyone else following the UK’s COVID inquiry? I admit I read about it only when it makes it on The Guardian while I’m browsing it.
Boris is scheduled to testify tomorrow.
History suggests he’ll leave with two a**holes.
@Beth:
My sister from Omaha lived in one of the northwest suburbs for five years and never quit complaining about how bad Chicago weather was. And by my long-term Colorado standards, Omaha’s weather itself is pretty terrible.
@JohnSF: Yep. Biden did that too.
@JohnSF: She already broke out once by jumping over her jailers. We’ll see if she can do it again.
I’m close to finishing a book that analyzes why many revolutionary authoritarian regimes last for a long time. It’s good, but at times it reads like a how-to manual on setting up an authoritarian regime. For instance, when it examines cases where a revolution did not produce a long lasting authoritarian regime, I almost get the feel that the author is saying “And here’s where they messed things up and the regime fell in short order.”
I wonder if there’s a similar analysis of why free democratic regimes last a long time. Sure, the British monarch may be a mere figurehead now, but they’re still on the throne and wear the crown and wallow in privilege, centuries after the Glorious Revolution.
In case you’re wondering, there are some parallels with the GQP today. Namely a siege mentality, and the conviction they’re under an existential threat.
@Mister Bluster:
Classic stuff. I still have some vintage Freak Brothers comics in storage. Dave Sheridan was a local guy when I lived in San Anselmo, my roommate knew him. Gilbert Shelton was also a talented poster artist, unfortunately, I don’t have any of his work in my collection.
Gilbert Shelton Psycho Bubbles Poster
@Gustopher:
I stopped reading The Hill because of crap like this.
Has Mu commented here at all since he went to China?
@Jax:
Not that I recall.
@CSK: I hope he’s ok.
@Michael Cain:
The day we moved to Omaha it was 17 below. My mother very nearly would not get off the plane.
I think I’ll quit my job, and dedicate my life to devising a virus, fungus, bacterium, or some other pest, that will wipe out every last avocado from the face of the Earth.