3 things

I received the first issue of Local Culture in the mail yesterday. That's the new print magazine from the folks at Front Porch Republic. I haven't subscribed to a magazine in years, but it always gives me a little thrill to discover one in my mailbox. Local Culture looks great, and even has some poetry in it. I'm thrilled!

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Plato's Republic teaches us how to see justice and then become just. I read half of the Republic last summer, and intend to read the second half soon. I'll have to keep John Mark Reynolds' advice for Plato'sreaders in mind.

His character “Socrates” creates a “city” so that the students he is teaching (in the dialogue) can see justice born, injustice creep in, and whether the just life is good. As a result, the city is simplified, as simple as the students will accept, for that purpose. Naturally, like all of us do, the students get excited about some details and so keep missing their need to see and become just. 

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The impeachment proceess, which is a component of the Democratic Party's political strategy to defeat him in 2020, is going forward despite the likelihood that it will result in a "hung jury" in the Senate. Trump is fighting back with an investigation of his own, claiming a "deep state" plan to frame him from the start. Charges of corruption with somewhat muddled evidence are going to fly back and forth for the rest of this election season.

The upshot of all this may well be an exhausted demos. If the Dems were to nominate a likable moderate, he or she would win in a landslide, in my opinion, simply due to the fact that many voters would want a return to "normalcy." But the Dems are not going to nominate a likable moderate, but a hard-left socialist type. Which means, in my opinion, that the impact of the impeachment process will in the end not hurt Trump much. His base will remain loyal.

So the question in the next election will be: Are you more disturbed by Trump's behavior or the Democratic candidate's policy proposals? That candidate will no doubt try to move toward the middle in the general election, but that will only make him/her seem even less authentic. Many moderate voters may choose "the devil we know."