What to Read: “There is no policy that matters. There is no promise that matters. There is no villain, no scapegoat, that matters. If, tomorrow, he said that Canadians, not Mexicans, were rapists and drug dealers, and the wall should be built on that border, no one would blink. His poll numbers would not waver. Because there are no positions and no statements that matter to them. There is only the man, the name, the brand.” The excellent Dave Eggers put on a Nascar hat and attended a Trump rally in Sacramento, which he found to be about as threatening as a Garth Brooks concert. (Related from WaPo: The man who showed Donald Trump how to exploit power and instill fear.

+ What to Stream: Your new favorite slide guitar and slide bass (yeah, you heard me) infused rock band is The Record Company. Start with these songs: Off the Ground, On the Move, and this cover of So What’cha Want.

+ What to Doc: The Battered Bastards of Baseball.

+ What to Book: Elizabeth Strout’s The Burgess Boys, which includes a look at the changes to a town when Muslim immigrants move in from Somalia.