What’s the main gripe against Trump, really? It’s not his handling of the material he took from the White House. It’s not even his sleazy gamesmanship with the government’s subpoena. The real gripe against Trump, and the thing for which conspicuously the Special Counsel did not indict him, is his role in egging on the January 6 rioters who sought to impede the counting of the electoral votes and, thus, to sidetrack in one way or another the peaceful transfer of power to Joe Biden. Most of the people I know, liberal or conservative, think that was by far Trump’s most egregious sin against the rule of law.

But it is, ironically but precisely, the peaceful transfer of power — more than anything else, the hallmark and the crown jewel of American democracy — that Trump’s indictment now puts at risk.

Why?

Because the entire predicate of the peaceful transfer of power is that the winning side won’t try to put the losing side in jail (or worse). Any way you slice it, the indictment endangers that predicate as never before since at least the Civil War and perhaps ever. In my view, that is too high a price to pay to hold even a guilty and belligerently unrepentant man to the punishment (I assume and believe) that, legally, he has earned. But this is where we’re headed, make no mistake about it.