Seattle politics and government have offered plenty for Sol Villarreal to fill his two-year-old weekly newsletter Sol’s Civic Minute. And then Donald Trump got elected.
Capitol Hill resident Villarreal had sprinkled some Trump news into Civic Minute, but decided to test out a second newsletter focused on the president-elect. In early December he published a post on Medium about Trump with a survey asking readers if they would like the info in an email. The answer was “yes” so Last Week in Trump was born.
Since then, he has been refining the newsletter with the help of subscribers. The most popular part of the first post on Medium was the inclusion of the conservative side, providing most Seattleites with views differing from their own. He has continued to do that in his beta test of the letter.
“It’s important, I think, for the political conversations that we have (to consider the other side) because we can address each other more effectively if we are talking to each other instead of over each other,” Villarreal said.
The @BuzzFeed dossier, @realDonaldTrump's first press conference in 6 months, and more… https://t.co/XVTPf7hhJU
— Last Week in Trump (@LastWeekInTrump) January 15, 2017
While Seattle bleeds blue, Villarreal, who is from rural Texas and knows many Trump voters, said he has benefited from reading the other side’s views and hopes subscribers will too.
“It’s interesting to see the flip side of this, of our Seattle bubble. … It’s like a mirror image of it. … There are a lot of people who have (conservative) views and see these things in that way,” Villarreal said.
It’s been surprising to him that while he doesn’t agree with conservative views he can understand where they’re coming from versus just labeling them as “ridiculous.”
Villarreal’s sources are a collection of email newsletters, big newspapers, and his RSS feed. He anchors his big stories with the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal and supplements those with information from all over. Some liberal sources have included Vox, The Intercept, and Mother Jones. On the conservative side, Villarreal has pulled from Fox News, Breitbart, and the National Review.
“My RSS, it’s probably over 100 different sources that I’m looking at,” he said. “It’s overwhelming just the number of different things there are to look at every week.”
Villarreal, a Windermere real estate agent and part of Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn’s office, is curious to see how big Last Week in Trump will get. The Seattle-focused Civic Minute goes directly to his brand as an area real estate pro. Where the Trump newsletter will lead him is less certain.
“Should you subscribe to Last Week in Trump? Absolutely!” McGinn is quoted as saying in the press release. “Sol Villarreal does a fantastic job of curating the news — giving you more time to go out there and do something about it!”
The response in Seattle to Last Week in Trump has been kind of surprising to Villarreal. As of Monday, 300 people had signed up for the email.
You can learn more at lastweekintrump.com.
Hey, look! CHS has an email newsletter, too!
