At the Washington Post, Michael Tesler argues that economic insecurity is not causing racial tension, but precisely the reverse: The increase in racial tension is driving the increase in feelings of economic insecurity. It is one of the great myths of secularism, of both the left and the right, that the most powerful driving force is always economics. I do think the transformation of people's self-identity from workers to consumers has ruined much, especially people's sense of religion, but that transformation was cultural as well as economic. Normally, culture can and should always trump economics, even if the people who advise most politicians on policy do not grasp that fact.
At Catholic New World, Archbishop Blase Cupich continues his examination of Amoris Laetitia. The archbishop certainly seems to capture the essence of the text better than some of his colleagues.
A bakery in Sacramento is in the midst of a, pardon the expression, delicious controversy. They made a transgender Ken doll cake. Now, you may think this is just too weird for words, but then you would not have lived in Little Rock, Arkansas, nor worked on the Wesley Clark for President campaign. Once I discovered the existence of Barbie cakes - the cake forms a hoop skirt, and a Barbie doll pops out of the cake, with frosting as the top of her dress - at the bakery around the corner from my house in Little Rock, I brought one to campaign HQ for all festive occasions.
Public Religion Research Institute has some new polling out. We Catholics must be doing something right: While Trump leads Clinton among white evangelicals by 62 percent to 23 percent, and he leads among white mainline Protestants by a margin of 47 percent to 37 percent, among white Catholics, Clinton is beating Trump by 44 percent to 41 percent, and she is clobbering him among Latinos 76 percent to 13 percent.
