Wednesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, March 8, 2023
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34 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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Traitor, bigot, pathological liar, cop-hater and Glenn Greenwald bestie Tucker Carlson commenting on Trump’s presidency and sore loser election lies, in the latest Fox News texts revealed by the Dominion lawsuit:
Grifters gonna grift. The White House Correspondent’s Association and the National Press Club should both boot Fox News, since it’s clearly not a news organization — but rather an infotainment outlet with a mission to knowingly spread extremist/fascist propaganda, blatant lies, and disinformation.
@DK: I can’t help but wonder if Carlson knew that quote was going to come out and his rushed “exposé” that some capitol video shows no violence is a form of obeisance to Trump and Carlson’s audience. Which leads to the question, how do we get FOX viewers to even see this stuff?
@gVOR08:
Why should we beat our head’s against a brick wall for a brainwashed cult? Let the dead bury their own dead.
We need suburban moms to see and understand how utterly vile, damaging, and dishonest, and deadly the modern Republican Party is, including its media backers. Ditto establishment figures who continue to handle Fox News like a real news organization when it should not be treated so.
Authorities identify Massachusetts ‘Granby girl’ 45 years after she was shot
Pretty damned sad.
@DK: A while back the progressive show The Young Turks interviewed a Trump supporter in Florida, and I found it to be one of the most fascinating glimpses into the cult I’ve ever seen. When she was told about Trump’s comment about how he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue without losing any support, she denied he’d ever said such a thing. When she was told about Trump’s many bankruptcies, her reply was something I will never forget:
“No, he didn’t! No he didn’t! No he didn’t! And that’s business!”
Literally within a single breath, she shifted without hesitation from denying the truth to justifying it.
In the hardcore MAGA world, it’s not so much that they’re deeply misinformed–though they very much are, of course–as that they don’t value the concept of truth. This is something that’s hard for people like us to grasp, but it’s the way their mind works. When they refuse to listen when presented with evidence conflicting with their beliefs, they’re not just being stubborn or closeminded. They literally don’t care whether what they’re hearing is true or not. It’s simply not important to them.
I’ve contended for a while that in the fight against COVID the evidence shows that the US did about mid-pack. I’ve long felt that given all the differences in the way governments count COVID deaths, the best overall indicator is excess deaths. Here’s a Kevin Drum piece that shows the latest excess death rate amongst wealthier nations that has us right about mid-pack.
There are two interesting details, one shown and one not shown. The first is right there at the bottom: Sweden famously abandoned full lock down early, sent children back to school, etc and they ended up at the third best by one metric and second best by another. As a country they are bookended by two very similar countries, Finland and Norway. As a group these made up the best three. I could speculate as to a) whether the differences between Sweden and the other two are significant, and b) why these three ended up so much better than the rest of the world, but it would just be speculation. I hope there are a thousand researchers tracking down the reasons why and their research points us in a better direction for future epidemics.
The second is something I did on my own about a year or so ago. I went down the rabbit hole and looked at US excess deaths state by state and, for some states, county by county and then compared them to their political leanings. Pretty consistently, redder states did worse than bluer states and once we get past the initial wave when no one knew how to react, the trend was very obvious. And within the best and the worst states, the redder the county the worse it did. This makes a rough kind of sense, since we know that trumpish states don’t value public or individual health very highly, at least for the bulk of the population. Yes, I know there are many, many individuals within those states that feel differently, but it is undeniable that for a century and more the trumpiest states make up the bottom in terms of public health. If these states as entities valued public health we would have seen some movement, other than Mississippi and Alabama occasional trading last place.
@Kylopod:
Yikes! Yeah, Tucker Carlson fanboy/fangirl Trumpers are a waste of time and energy in terms of Democratic resources. Democrats ought to focus on increasing turnout among its own core demographics everywhere and holding onto persuadable swing/suburban voters.
@MarkedMan:
And likely a better direction for everyday non-epidemic policy. When you start with a population that’s healthier and smarter because they’ve invested in healthcare and education in ways the United States refuses to, well…
Not that the research will be listened to anyway, since we live in a “the experts were wrong” country.
@DK: @gVOR08: @Kylopod:
Trump showed them a way to deny the evidence of their own eyes and ears. Remember when he very reluctantly and under duress apologized for the grab-em-by-the-pussy tape? A week or so later, he was speculating out loud that the voice on the tape didn’t sound like his, so maybe it was faked…This, after he’d acknowledged it was he and grudgingly apologized for it.
I too hope people look at Sweden, Norway and Denmark, but also at some of the Asian countries that had even better results. But looking at Sweden you should remember that they did lockdown light, more interventions than doing nothing. They significantly tightened up in late 2020/2021 when there was a surge of covid. They were pretty strict about not having large groups gather. They also have a lot of advantages in that they have a decent health care system, a compliant population and one fo the highest percentages of single person households. (Most covid was spread in families.) Also, their vaccination rate was very high. So the graph is a bit compressed but what you really see is that Sweden was in the middle of a pack, maybe a bit above average, for the first year or so. The high uptake of vaccines, and IIRC it was pretty fast on their part, allowed them to level off.
Steve
@steve: This is what I meant about the need for research. We can speculate all day long, but in the end the data will have to speak for itself. For instance, you mentioned Asia’s comparative success. That would be understandable if China and, say, Japan did very well and the rest of Asia had poor outcomes, but Asia performed amazingly well across the board. I’ve been to China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore in the last decade and have family members who spent at least a week in Cambodia, Laos, and Mongolia. These countries differ from each other dramatically in so many ways, especially in public health and health care, yet as a group they have greatly outperformed the rest of the world. Vietnam, for instance, is incredibly crowded, has large multi-generational families living in close quarters, has a poor public health care system, was very late in getting the vaccine, has a poor rate of vaccination, and the population often puts off medical care due to lack of funds. Yet despite all this they did much, much better than the US in terms of official COVID death rates. It seems pretty apparent to me that a) we don’t really know what the big movers are when it comes to decreasing the death rate, and b) that probably means there are a number of them.
If I had to make a guess it would be that there was something that went around Asia back in the days when world travel wasn’t so common and that granted significant immunity to the over 50 population there. Since COVID kills that age group at orders of magnitude higher than younger cohorts, it would explain the discrepancy. But “would explain” is worthless without actual evidence.
@MarkedMan:
I wonder if Asia just had more exposure to previous coronaviruses and thus their immune systems were just better prepared for COVID than other areas…
Seeing some reporting, this am, re-upping the fact that DeSantis was a “specialist” at Gitmo.
Mansur Ahmad Saad al-Dayfi was held at Gitmo for 16 years without charges. In a 2022 interview al-Dayfi claimed that, during his time as a JAG lawyer at Gitmo, DeSantis oversaw beatings and force-feedings of detainees.
This could get interesting.
Am I surprised that Ron DeFascism might be involved in torture?
Not one bit.
Trump could still be elected if indicted or convicted on any state or federal chrge. Being locked in a prison would probably cramp his campaigning style, though.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/trump-elected-president-indicted-convicted-experts/story?id=97688250
@MarkedMan:
@Stormy Dragon:
I have no data to back this up – but it seems to me that those cultures are just more used to dealing with this type of thing.
We have a woman in our office from China and she had a mask on immediately at the onset, and still wears one.
Bipartisan bill introduced to end Cuba embargo.
It’s unlikely to get anywhere, but it’s interesting that it’s being put forth.
@Stormy Dragon:
That might be worth investigating.
Remember SARS in 2003 or so? It was a virus similar to COVID, albeit far more deadly and far less transmissible. People who had recovered from it and the contracted the trump virus, were found to have protection against the latter.
We know, too, some coronaviruses cause common colds. Prior exposure to these also offered protection from COVID, just not that much.
It’s possible, I suppose, there may be coronaviruses out there that cause no disease or even symptoms, say they find it hard to replicate inside humans, but that share enough characteristics, on their surface, to SARS-CoV-2 to offer protection against the latter.
BTW, common cold is not caused only by coronaviruses, but by a wide variety of virus families. These include the adenoviruses AZ and J&J used in their viral vector vaccines.
@daryl and his brother darryl: I can’t stress enough that there is no “those people”. It would be like saying, “Well, European infrastructure is done better” and lumping Switzerland in with Poland and Romania and Moldova and Greece and France and Estonia and Italy. Spend even one day in Singapore vs. one in Vietnam or Macau or Cambodia and you would not think that “Asians are just more…” anything.
On the other hand, as someone mentioned above, they have had coronavirus sweeping through the region in waves forever. And the Poultry/Fish/Swine/Rice cycle of agriculture is prevalent in rural areas throughout, and that system does seem to produce a lot of diseases that jump from animals to humans.
@Kathy: There may be a more gruesome correlation. SARs or something similar may have already killed off all the elderly susceptible to such things.
Research! If my life debugging systems has shown anything it is that it’s easy to come up with astoundingly brilliant theories that explain all relevant facts… and turn out to be completely wrong.
@MarkedMan:
Very unlikely.
For one thing, that was 20 years ago. many who did not even catch SARS have died of old age since then. Many who were middle-aged are now elderly.
But the salient fact of SARS vs COVID is the disparity in case numbers. there were under 10,000 documented cases of SARS worldwide. the scary thing was the 9+% fatality rate.
I wonder now with so few cases, where did they find survivors who got infected with SARS-CoV-2.
Things going on in Georgia.
It appears the government had decided to try to cuddle up to the Kremlin, and a fair number of people are not willing to put up with it.
Also, Israel, where a lot of people are riled about Netanyahu’s proposals for legal “reforms”.
As well as simple dislike of the current coalition in general, and it’s Netanyahu versus the courts grudge in particular, it may also perhaps reflect a long term grouch of “left of centre” Israelis, about coddling the ultra-Orthodox, who are excused military service, and having to protect militant settlers they see as trouble makers.
@Stormy Dragon:
At the least, some of them made significant policy choices after the virus in 2003 or so. South Korea, for example, passed laws that said the government could redirect academic and commercial resources if necessary. Which they did for Covid. Universities dropped everything else to develop tests. Manufacturing test kits took precedence over everything else at the companies that could do it. Practically anyone with the background was trained and put to work processing kits. IIRC, there were stories about heads of departments at universities pulling 18-hour shifts processing test kits.
@Kylopod:
Can confirm. I’m from a big conservative Republican working class law enforcement family. They’re not especially active in politics, they don’t attend rallies. They’re definitely on Team Red. My father and 7 siblings have been all in on Trump for going on 7 years now. They generally will not confirm, refute, or deny any of allegations against Trump. The usual response is something along the lines of ‘both parties do it’ or ‘Trump was not given a fair chance.’
Politically, the truth is for them, for the most part, a very minor inconvenience.
Too much work right now to write down my latest big, weird question, but I can’t resist a teaser:
Would a Dyson sphere be able to catch and make use of dissipated heat?
More as time permits, most likely tomorrow.
@daryl and his brother darryl:
Only peripherally related, but further news from DeSantistan:
Personally, as a 19-year-old, I’d rather get the needle than be sentenced to die of old age in prison. 50+ years of staring at walls, knowing I’m never getting out (until I ship out in a box) would be much more horrific. Then again, I’m at the age and health level where life in prison doesn’t have nearly the deterrent that it did 50 years ago. YMMV
https://www.law.com/dailybusinessreview/2023/03/08/florida-lawmakers-move-forward-on-death-penalty-changes/?kw=Florida%20Lawmakers%20Move%20Forward%20on%20Death%20Penalty%20Changes&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=afternoonupdate&utm_content=20230308&utm_term=dbr&slreturn=20230208172750
Today in crazy shit we all expected:
https://wtop.com/prince-georges-county/2023/03/former-prince-georges-co-schools-librarian-faces-child-porn-charges/
There are more details, but it gets creepy fast.
I’ve long believed that anyone who believes there is a slippery slope from X to pedophilia only thinks that because they are at the bottom of that slope. Normal people think that X won’t lead to pedophilia because pedophilia just isn’t a thing they are interested in.
On the other hand, a librarian spray painting “Groomer” across the doors of a library may just be confessing rather than accusing.
@Flat Earth Luddite: “Death is so final, whereas life is full of possibilities”
– Tyrion Lannister
Marked Man- You also have places like Canada and Australia doing much better than we did. Even within the US there is a lot of variation. I think people will be working the data for a long time.
Steve
Just to make MR’s head explode:
A GOP war on ‘woke’? Most Americans view the term as a positive, USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds
Well, there went my vacation. Sample delivery scheduled for March 21st, exactly when I was planning to leave…
I did consider invoking the Homer Simpson campaign slogan: Can’t someone else do it? But it’s a bad time for that for various reasons.
So, now I’m looking for after Easter, which is also a low-demand period.
@Kathy: That sucks.
As the man says in Futurama, “ya gotta do whatcha gotta do.” Or was that an inspirational poster? Anyway, sorry that this is whatcha gotta do.
Retired NBA Sonics star Shawn Kemp (56) has been arrested for a drive-by shooting at the Tacoma Mall parking lot. Info is scarce, but this is the best so far,
I checked the jail roster (midnight) and he is listed.
@Gustopher:
It was said by several characters and also displayed in a poster, though I wouldn’t call it motivational.