Either Trump or the Law

The former president’s undemocratic attack against the justice system because of his indictment is finding an alarming degree of support within the Republican Party.

The Department of Justice’s indictment of former President Donald Trump contains a significant level of detailed evidence as the basis for charging him with 37 felonies involving the handling of classified government documents he took from the White House. Both the interpretable part of any indictment and the prosecution’s technical skills to get a conviction will become apparent throughout the rest of the process, yet those nearly 50 pages unequivocally allege that Trump knew he had to return those documents, he refused to hand them over when asked and then lied about it to the FBI and his own lawyers. Hundreds of those documents are secret and include information about the U.S. nuclear program as well as specific attack or defense plans from other countries. Both the prosecution’s narrative and the initial evidence provided are overwhelming.

Last Tuesday, Trump appeared before a federal court in Miami. He heard the charges from the judge’s mouth, pleaded not guilty through his lawyers and then put on his usual show of democratic subversion, which so successfully galvanizes his followers. He denounced what he considered an “outrageous and vicious” political persecution, called the special counsel in the case “a deranged lunatic,” demanded that Republicans should “get tough” and vowed revenge against his enemies if he becomes president again.

This is when the U.S. — and with it, the world — turns around to check on what the Republican Party is doing. The most committed part of its base is willing to lift Trump up as the presidential candidate again. For the last eight years, the dynamics have been the same, and, save for a few exceptions, there has been no condemnation commensurate with the challenge. First, they had to pick between Trump and decency. Then, between Trump and the truth. And finally, from the moment he lost the election, the choice was between Trump and the law; therefore, between Trump and democracy itself. The former president is facing 71 criminal charges in two different jurisdictions (state and federal), with more on the way. The former president’s legal situation will only get worse, and with it, his vitriol against the rule of law.

The start of the primaries further complicates the situation. These days, it has been disheartening to see how Republican voices raised in defense of justice and against Trump have been a minority. Not even the candidates who have criticized him openly, such as Mike Pence or Chris Christie, appear willing to fight him if he wins the nomination. There is no longer room for political pragmatism as a means to maintain a state of apathy that has always been unacceptable and shameful. If the Republican Party ends up yielding to its own destruction and once more picks Trump as a candidate, the 2024 election will no longer be a referendum on his policies or on him as a person. It will be a referendum on the rule of law in a country on the edge of an abyss.