{"id":8513,"date":"2026-02-07T10:14:44","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T16:14:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kewus.net\/yesterday\/?p=8513"},"modified":"2026-02-07T10:33:50","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T16:33:50","slug":"20260207","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kewus.net\/yesterday\/2026\/02\/07\/20260207\/","title":{"rendered":"Yesterday\u2019s News 2026 02 07"},"content":{"rendered":"

curated news excerpts & citations<\/h4>\n

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Steward Beckham: A Presidency of Racist Memes<\/a><\/h2>\n

This morning, I woke up to the news that the president had posted a social media video depicting the former and first Black head of state and his wife as chimpanzees. It was grotesque. It was also tragically unsurprising. We\u2019ve had roughly a decade of this kind of political rot: a carnival barker\u2019s politics of enrichment for the wealthiest, paired with racist shiny objects tossed to a sizable, influential slice of the working public like bait.<\/p>\n

A few Republicans pushed back. Senator Tim Scott suggested it was racist, but also may have been a \u201cmistake\u201d by the president or his communications team. Congressman Mike Lawler also framed it as a possible mistake while admitting, plainly, that this wasn\u2019t borderline anything, just raw racism. It was overt.<\/p>\n

I grew up on a saying my mother repeated often: what happens in the dark comes to light<\/em>. American politics has its own version of that law. Think of Ronald Reagan launching his 1980 general-election campaign with a \u201cstates\u2019 rights\u201d speech near Philadelphia, Mississippi, only sixteen years after the murders of civil rights workers there. On paper, \u201cstates\u2019 rights\u201d can sound like a tidy argument about federalism. In historical practice, especially in the post\u2013Civil Rights era, it functioned as coded reassurance: desegregation went too far; the old order should reassert itself; separate but equal (that peculiar institution\u2019s afterlife) deserved a second wind.
\n…<\/p>\n

Same with Reagan\u2019s \u201cwelfare queen\u201d trope.
\n…
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\nSo when the president posts something like last night\u2019s video, he\u2019s not merely being tasteless or provocative. He\u2019s reaffirming the bargain at the center of his rise: political power built on the destabilization of the country through racial grievance through the insistence that a Black president disproving racist stereotypes was not progress but an existential theft<\/em>. …
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\n(Steward Beckham more…)<\/a><\/p>\n

Jennifer Rubin: Judge Ana Reyes calls out Trump regime racism<\/a><\/h2>\n

Slate: The Real Reason Trump Wants to Let Our Nuclear Weapons Treaty With Russia Die<\/a><\/h2>\n

…
\nThe real problem with New START, in Trump\u2019s eyes, was the same problem that compelled him to denounce the Iran nuclear deal as \u201cthe worst deal ever<\/a>\u201d before he tore it up in 2018; he hates them because they were both signed by his loathed and envied predecessor, Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

Jason Easley: If Trump Didn’t Post The Racist Video, His Decline Is Even Worse Than Imagined<\/a><\/h2>\n

The White House is claiming that Trump didn’t post the racist video attacking the Obamas, but for this to be true, it exposes another lie that Trump is energetic and running his own social media.<\/p>\n

Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – February 6, 2026<\/a><\/h2>\n

…
\nLater tonight on Air Force One, Trump said that he had posted it himself. When a reporter asked if he would apologize, he said, \u201cNo, I didn\u2019t make a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the post exhibited both the president\u2019s vile racism and his failing impulse control, it also seems to have been an attempt to use racism to break the growing coalition against him. As when they arrested Black journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort as well as Black protesters at a church while leaving white protesters free, Trump and his allies are hammering on racial fault lines. …
\n…<\/p>\n

Mike Stunson of Forbes<\/em> reported today that the U.S. lost 108,435 jobs in January in the biggest cuts since January 2009 during the Great Recession. Despite Trump\u2019s insistence that he would bring back masculine jobs like manufacturing, in 2025 the U.S. lost about 68,000 manufacturing jobs.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, February 3, a bipartisan group of 27 former Agriculture Department officials and leaders from farm and commodity groups wrote to the leaders of the agriculture committees of both chambers with a dire warning about \u201cthe damage that is being done to American farmers.\u201d
\n(Heather Cox Richardson more…)<\/a><\/p>\n

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