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Archives

Weekly Lists

Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things
subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember.
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February 24, 2018

Week 67

On a holiday week with Congress out of session, gun control and the Mueller probe dominated the headlines and the country’s attention. The youth-led activism on gun control started by Parkland students has been compared to the successful youth movement against the Vietnam War. The Trump regime was caught flat-footed on the issue, left to parrot NRA talking points; but one White House described the mass shooting as a “reprieve” from a series of negative news and scandals starting in Week 65.

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February 17, 2018

Week 66

For the first time in quite a while, this week Trump had no control over the narrative. What was supposed to be his Infrastructure Week, was quickly supplanted by the Rob Porter scandal, which carried over from Week 65 and escalated, highlighting the Trump White House dysfunction. Another mass shooting shook the country and left Trump and his regime flat-footed ahead of bombshell indictments unsealed by Mueller against Russians on Friday.

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February 10, 2018

Week 65

This week the chaos in our country infected Trump’s beloved stock market, which suffered its most volatile week since the financial crisis of 2008, as the Republican Party of Trump abandoned yet another of its guiding principles, fiscal responsibility. The regime suffered multiple resignations from its thinly staffed White House, as well as resignation of the third-ranking official at the Department of Justice amid escalating attacks on our institutions by Trump and his allies.

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February 03, 2018

Week 64

The news this week was dominated by the Devin Nunes memo, which, following high drama and despite calls to withhold it from US intelligence leaders including Trump appointee Christopher Wray, was released on Friday. Trump suffered no consequences for making highly classified information public, nor for pushing out Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe, almost assuring he will irreverently continue to take steps to undermine the Mueller probe, likely dispensing with Rod Rosenstein next. With few exceptions, Republicans remain silent and complicit.

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January 27, 2018

Week 63

The fabric of our country is changing at an alarming pace, although in the chaos, related news is garnering little media coverage or attention. Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is becoming increasingly active and emboldened, using Gestapo-type tactics to target immigrants living lawfully in our country, as Trump and his regime continue to openly target and disparage marginalized communities.

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January 20, 2018

Week 62

Trump marked his one-year anniversary in office with a government shutdown, the first shutdown in history when a single party is in control of the House, Senate, and White House. Trump’s erratic behavior and fluid positions on issues were fuel on the flames of a country and Congress torn and divided. Conversely, the anniversary of the Women’s March celebrated millions marching in 250 cities across the country, and marked a record number of women running for office and becoming politically involved.

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January 13, 2018

Week 61

This is the longest weekly list so far, and contains historic moments. Senator Dianne Feinstein released 300 pages of Fusion GPS testimony on the Steele dossier, days after her Republican colleagues had unilaterally issued the committee’s first criminal referral to the FBI, implicating Steele. Trump’s “shithole” countries statement prompted worldwide condemnation and questions of whether he is eroding US moral authority — while concerns about his fitness for office continued to swirl.

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January 06, 2018

Week 60

This week, as a new book by Michael Wolff on Trump’s White House dominated the news cycle, a myriad of important news stories and alarming actions and trends went largely unnoticed. Wolff’s book confirmed much of what has been speculated about Trump’s mental health and competence for the job, and left many new threads to be explored.

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December 30, 2017

Week 59

In what was expected to be a quiet holiday week, Trump managed to generate a fair amount of controversy and concern. Along with his regime and some in the Republican Party, Trump continued to attack American institutions and Mueller. A NYT interview revealed Trump still does not understand, or choose to accept, the boundaries of his power in our democracy — and he continues to lie, irreverently. The issue of Trump’s mental health also resurfaced this week.

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December 23, 2017

Week 58

This week Trump and the Republicans passed their first piece of major legislation, violating many democratic norms in the process: a wildly unpopular tax plan, which will massively redistribute wealth akin to an oligarchy. Polling shows the Republican Party could face a tsunami in 2018 as voters, especially women and voters under 35, are fleeing the party under Trump.

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