And that brings me right back to where I ended in my initial post about the foolishness of prosecuting Trump—with the claim that the former president is primarily a political problem for the United States, not a legal or criminal one.

Until he is defeated at the ballot box by such a convincing margin that even the most passionate of his supporters have to recognize him as a loser, Trump will be a threat to American democracy. Throwing him in jail won’t remove that threat. How many minutes would it take the just-inaugurated President Ron DeSantis to pardon a convicted Donald Trump? And that’s assuming he doesn’t run for (and win) the presidency while on trial or from jail, an event that could well break the country.

Some will surely respond as someone on Twitter did, by quoting the old saying about how sometimes we need to ensure justice is done though the heavens fall. That’s very noble. I would only urge my fellow liberals to reflect on whether it’s really a good idea to act in a way that could well help to ensure or hasten such a calamitous outcome.