The Foreign Policy of the United States
Impeachment Roundup
As I mentioned in the last edition, to keep impeachment news from overwhelming everything else, I'll be putting almost all of my commentary on this issue into separate updates like this one that will come out every week or two as developments merit. I'm going to try not to get bogged down in too many daily details or rumors and keep my focus on the big picture.
Gathering impeachment news into a single update will also allow those of you who think the whole impeachment inquiry is bunk and don't want to hear anything about it—and I know there are some of you out there on my subscriber list—a chance to shake your heads, mutter something darkly about "Trump Derangement Syndrome," decide that I have simply lost it on this issue, and skip these updates entirely.
That's your prerogative—but before you do it, I'd ask that you consider the first item in today's update.
1. The War on the Brains of the Right
In politics, there is always a tension between principle and partisanship. In theory, a political party has to win in order to promote its agenda. In practice, the imperative to support their highest elected official, in the name of winning, often leads parties to sell out their principles. Sometimes it's a few of their principles, sometimes it's all of them.
Under Trump, this conflict has become far more intense than usual. To indicate that this is not just my subjective impression, consider the plight of Erick Erickson, a hard-core conservative loyalist who went NeverTrump in 2016. Over the past three years, he slowly drifted back into the fold and announced that while he will continue to criticize President Trump, he will vote for him in 2020. If you've been paying attention, you can guess how well that went over.
The rest of this edition is available only by e-mail to paid subscribers.