The Widening Gyre

The unprecedented campaign of legal warfare against Trump and some of his aides risks consuming the federal government more broadly. One sign of the fevered political climate: in the New York Times, Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin, a noted Trump critic, called for the Biden administration to start deciding which cases specific Supreme Court justices can and cannot hear.

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Congressman Raskin’s essay highlights how the crusade to “break norms in order to save them” lacks a limiting principle. And such radical politics of opposition may, if anything, have strengthened Trump’s position. Trump’s “American carnage” vision for politics assumes a kind of existential struggle. By invoking an existential emergency, Trump’s enemies sign on to the fundamental premises of his own political brand. ...

Even now, the gyre may not be done widening. The all-out-legal crusade against Trump could lead to a backlash in which Republicans launch their own legal broadsides against their Democratic opponents.

Ed Morrissey

As I wrote earlier, Newton's Third Law applies in politics, especially when the rule of law gets replaced by the rule of power. If the appellate courts in New York don't put a rapid stop to this, then expect lawfare to become the norm in American politics. 

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