Stephen Marche is the author of The Next Civil War.
The United States took a big step toward civil war this week, and it’s not clear how it could take that step back. With the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, another scene once unimaginable in American politics presented itself. The Secret Service must allow FBI agents into the former president’s residence.
The event itself, though surprising, is less important than what it suggests. So far no one knows why the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, but the Department of Justice (DOJ) must take the warrant to a federal judge and determine which object they are looking for and the crimes associated with the object. It’s a safe bet that the FBI won’t risk the attack unless they prepare to arrest Trump and that they believe in a conviction.
A former president in prison is a completely plausible scenario at this point. But even those who have longed for the reward since Mr. Trump descending from the escalator to the applause of the hired audience had to take a deep breath and ask himself: What are the consequences? Is it worth it?
For many on the left, this moment is too sweet not to enjoy. The Mar-a-Lago attack is the part in a gangster movie where the FBI breaks through the door, and all impunity ends. But what is so difficult to explain to those on the left about the dangers facing America is that the right feels just as besieged and desperate as those on the left.
At the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, a banner featured the frightening motto: “We are all domestic terrorists.” The same conference featured a kind of performance art: an actor played a January 6 rioter in prison clothes crying in a cell. House Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene came to cheer her on. Whether this self-pity is justified or not doesn’t matter; they perceive themselves as political prisoners.
Fox News showed restraint about the Mar-a-Lago attack, comparing the FBI to the “Gestapo” and warning of a “pre-emptive coup.” And it’s not just Trump’s media ecosystem. Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, described the attack as an “intolerable politicization of guns.”
Arms appears to be the Republican’s main messaging tactic. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also used it in his response: “The MAL attack is another escalation in the federal agency’s arsenal against the Regime’s political opponents, while the likes of Hunter Biden are being treated with child gloves,” he tweeted. This is not empty rhetoric, or nothing at all: Mr. DeSantis truly believed that the federal government was the “regime” and that the FBI was their weapon.
Other countries have imprisoned presidents before, of course. Israel, France and South Korea all punished the former leader. But neither of those countries has a court system in the midst of a crisis of legitimacy like the US Supreme Court now. The country is a complex cascade system. No one, on either side, believes that American legal entities are above politics anymore. Once elected, the other party will feel fully entitled to use the DOJ as their weapon. This week’s attacks have only increased the destruction of cross-partisan national institutions, and they are what prevent democracy from sliding into autocracy.
But whatever the consequences, the most sacred principle in democracy is equality under the law. If Trump breaks the law, especially if he commits treason, he should go to jail. A democracy that cannot protect itself from the illegal abuse of power does not deserve its name.
And it’s not just a question of principle at stake. America’s right to watch what the FBI is willing to do. The Trump years have shown that nothing is stable in American politics; lines of acceptable behavior change frequently and are unpredictable. They learn in real time what the standards are now, what the rules of the game will be later.
Republicans at the state level have orchestrated themselves to call off a federal election that didn’t go their way. They need to know that someone is fighting for the law, and that breaking the law has consequences. They need to fear prosecution. It is no longer accurate to assume that Republican officials will fulfill their duties for an orderly and legal transition of power just because. They need to see that law enforcement will enforce the law.
The US has come to a point where it no longer has good options. If the DOJ doesn’t indict Trump, they risk destroying the rule of law. If they accuse Trump, they risk destroying the country. Among marriage counselors, there is an old wisdom expressed as the question: “Would you rather be right or get married?” But the truth is there are times to be right than to be married. This may be one of them.
In their excitement over Trump’s possible arrest, powers that believe in American democracy should not be confused today with a system that works or a normal return to political life. Not. The arrest of a former president was a catastrophe – a necessary catastrophe, perhaps, but a catastrophe nonetheless.
The left must recognize the situation they are in. Nearly half of their countries no longer believe that equality under the law is as important as their own party controlling the machinery of government. And their response to law enforcement against their partisan interests has become increasingly violent and vengeful. They can live in a functional democracy or the United States, but not both. The time to vote will come sooner than anyone expected.
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