This week I’m focusing on two related stories: Congressional Republicans are beginning to distance themselves from the White House, and Trump is shoring up the support of his base by tossing them red meat like cutting legal immigration in half and going after affirmative action programs at universities. I see these two developments as intimately related, but the details of how each one is happening are separate, so I’ll cover them in two featured posts.
The increasing distance between Trump and Congress will be in “Was TrumpCare’s Failure a Turning Point?” and Trump’s rabble rousing in “Returning to the Well of White Resentment”. They both still need some work, so I’m not sure exactly when they’ll appear.
The weekly summary should short this week, though I still have some links to collect. I’ll cover some racial issues, like the controversy over P&G’s video “The Talk”, the NAACP’s travel advisory for Missouri, and the NFL’s blacklisting of Colin Kaepernick. Naturally, there were more developments in the Russia investigation. A Vatican journal put out a condemnation of the American Catholic leadership’s political alliance with right-wing Protestantism. And I’ll close with a cleverly designed chapel that looks to me like a metaphor for religion itself.
Things will probably come out slowly today, but I expect to have everything out at least by 1 EDT.
The Weekly Sift 