Steven L. Taylor
@sltaylor.bsky.social
600 followers 250 following 340 posts
Professor Emeritus of PoliSci and former Dean of Arts & Sciences. My research is focused on comparative democratic institutions.🖖🤘 I write about politics at www.outsidethebeltway.com
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sltaylor.bsky.social
Not only, as he notes, does the other team not exist, but whatever is said this becomes likely forgotten and irrelevant as soon as tomorrow, and definitely once the next game is played. This would include the shifting narratives that Adam mentioned (the refs, the coaches, etc).
sltaylor.bsky.social
I wasn't commenting on Donny, per se, as much as trying to amplify what I understood Adam to be saying to apply to much of the rightward mediasphere (which would include Trump in this clip), which approaches politics with a sophistication on the level of sportstalk.
sltaylor.bsky.social
The cross-blog dialog with @lawgunsmoney.bsky.social continues (or, perhaps more accurately, I continue to try and work out my thoughts on all of this--and I am not done yet!)

On Authoritarianism, Competitive and Otherwise – Outside the Beltway outsidethebeltway.com/on-authorita...
On Authoritarianism, Competitive and Otherwise – Outside the Beltway
outsidethebeltway.com
sltaylor.bsky.social
I have thought for some time that right wing media (talk radio and FNC, et al) sounds almost the same as sport talk. All about team and everything memory holed week-to-week because whatever you said last week is erased by the new game being played this week.
Reposted by Steven L. Taylor
kjephd.bsky.social
Look, it's crazy for a president to talk this way to the armed forces of the United States, which are paid for by all Americans and are sworn to protect them all too

I won't stop saying it
atrupar.com
Trump to the Navy: "I was president in 2016. And then they rigged the election on me. And then we caught 'em, didn't we?"
sltaylor.bsky.social
One of the many reasons I don’t like the filibuster/cloture rule is that it muddies responsibility from the POV of most citizens.
sltaylor.bsky.social
Fair enough—although not in the post I was referring to. The ongoing , never ending stream on social media has its disadvantages ;)
Reposted by Steven L. Taylor
cherylrofer.bsky.social
This is delusional. There is no threat to "the homeland," whatever that may mean, nor to the border. The hemisphere is a big place, and Venezuela and Mexico, which Hegseth and Trump have threatened, are part of it.

Russia poses an active threat to Europe, and we must respond to the rise of China.
thebulwark.com
Doocy: "If a young man or woman signs up today, are they more likely to deploy to the Middle East or the Midwest?"

Hegseth: "The era of sort of reckless adventurism around the globe is over...We're here to defend the hemisphere, the homeland, the border."
sltaylor.bsky.social
Further, the deployment of fascistic tactics is not evenly distributed across the population. What happened in that apartment building in Chicago looks pretty fascistic to me.

I agree that the regime they are trying to construct is unconsolidated.
sltaylor.bsky.social
FWIW, I would counter that you are conflating totalitarianism with fascism. I don't think you have to have the former to have the latter.

The administration is privileging raw power over the rule of law and is dividing the population into Us and Them.
sltaylor.bsky.social
Agreed-even more so, I think that Stanley is correct, it is "a way of doing politics". We are all so programmed to equate fascism with Nazism with totalitarianism that it makes it too easy to ignore the burgeoning fascism right in front of us.

Incomplete fascism can still be fascism.
sltaylor.bsky.social
Too many simple-minded people have fallen prey to the simplistic dichotomization of red and blue states.
Reposted by Steven L. Taylor
jamellebouie.net
it is interesting to me how the MAGA right has a balkanized view of the United States that does not, at all, correspond with the reality of the United States
gregsargent.bsky.social
Russell Vought's sick little power trip will also hurt GOPers. One project he's cutting is the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub, which spans Oregon, Washington, and...Montana. The state's GOP governor has hailed it for creating "good-paying Montana jobs." Oops.

newrepublic.com/article/2012...
Reposted by Steven L. Taylor
radiofreetom.bsky.social
Yes, ignore the libraries and academic and scholarly and scientific websites and the free encyclopedias and other reference books and focus on your gripe that magazines aren’t free,

Except @theatlantic.com is in fact making itself free in any public high school that wants it.
sltaylor.bsky.social
Kind of you to say--I appreciate the note. I think we are all struggling to get people to see what is going on right in front of us. It feels Sisyphean most of the time.
sltaylor.bsky.social
I blame @dhnexon.bsky.social for this (well, actually, I blame the GOP, Trump, and a number of others I could name).

Has the Constitution Failed? – Outside the Beltway outsidethebeltway.com/has-the-cons...
Has the Constitution Failed? – Outside the Beltway
outsidethebeltway.com
sltaylor.bsky.social
Protip: if you don't want people calling you a Nazi or a fascist, don't give speeches that sound like you are cribbing Mein Kampf.

Echoes of Mein Kampf – Outside the Beltway outsidethebeltway.com/echos-of-mei...
Echoes of Mein Kampf – Outside the Beltway
outsidethebeltway.com