I’m back from the West Coast, where I gave a talk to the UU Church of Palo Alto titled “Season of Darkness, Season of Hope“. It’s a Solstice sermon about the current political situation and the difference between hope (which is an attitude towards life in the present) and optimism (which is a belief about the future).
This week’s featured post, “How will they change their minds?” is an attempt to envision how we get out of the current political situation: Using the once-very-popular Iraq War as a model, I argue that events will cause the American people to change their minds about Trump, and he will become too unpopular to accomplish the worst things that liberals are currently imagining. (Bad things, yes. The worst things, no.) If you believe that model of how the current situation resolves, then the question becomes: How do we make it easier for people to change their minds? (I picked that question up from a Michael Moore talk in 2003.)
The weekly summary discusses the Russian manipulation of the election, Trump’s almost-complete cabinet, the growing controversy over the conflict between Trump’s responsibilities as president and his business interests, the North Carolina legislature’s power grab after the voters elected a Democratic governor, the University of Minnesota football team’s unsuccessful attempt to use its power to shield ten players from the consequences of a sexual assault, and the emerging ObamaCare-repeal strategies, before closing with a flat-Earth video.
I’ll be trying to get the mind-change post out by 9 EST and the weekly summary out by 11.
The Weekly Sift 