The Weekly Sift

It’s been three weeks since the last weekly summary, so today I’ll be going a bit wild. I guess that’s a good sign: Time off is supposed to be rejuvenating.

There are two featured posts this week (and two other ideas that I pushed off to next week, not to mention a couple fairly long notes in the summary). One is about the Biden-is-coming-for-your-gas-stove panic on the right, which I’m using as an example of a larger phenomenon: When your legislative agenda flies in the face of public opinion, you need phony issues to keep people distracted.

And if gas stoves don’t grab you, what about Microsoft’s new X-box software “recruiting” your child into climate awareness? Or the sinister implications of the personalities chosen for M&M’s spokescandies (who have now been shelved)? That’s all much more important than protecting Social Security or the credit rating of the United States, not to mention issues like voting rights, abortion rights, or climate change.

The article should post a little after 9 EST.

The second featured post looks at Democrats’ problems in rural and small-town America, spinning off of an article about rural rage by Thomas Edsell, and incorporating some subsequent comments by Paul Krugman. It boils down to: What do you do when people have genuine problems, but the way they frame those problems is based in myths? Debunking those myths seems essential to addressing the real problems, but in the meantime you frame yourself as an enemy.

Let’s predict that for around 11.

Then there’s the summary, which has three weeks of backlogged news. There’s all the craziness of the new House majority, all the disturbing video we’ve been exposed to lately (Tyre Nichols’ murder, the Paul Pelosi attack, …), waiting for the Georgia grand jury report and/or indictments of Trump and his henchmen, Pence joining the classified-documents bru-ha-ha, China’s population decline, Ukraine getting tanks, a Trump-connected Russian oligarch paying off a key FBI agent, gender identity in public schools, the DeSantis regime’s propaganda efforts, and a bunch more stuff.

I apologize for the length — I’m stretching the idea of “summary” this week — and remind you that you are free to skip around.

But don’t forget to vote for your favorite Minnesota snowplow names.

The summary should appear maybe 1ish.