CT Blue

One of the Republican talking points about the indictment of a certain very stable genius is that the prosecution is “politically motivated”. I won’t belabor the obvious point that this is rich coming from a party that has called for the prosecution of its political opponents (“lock her up”, “Hunter’s laptop”, etc.) on a routine basis. One obvious difference between the Republicans and the current situation is that the targets of the Republicans did nothing wrong, while Trump is obviously guilty.

But there’s a kernel of truth in the claim that this prosecution is “politically motivated”.

Let’s start with stipulating that it’s pretty obvious that Trump has been committing crimes throughout his lifetime, and he came to what he thought was the justifiable conclusion that he was exempt from criminal prosecution. In fact, the kind of crime in which he engaged during his business career is routinely ignored by the authorities, who much prefer to go after the little guy.

A criminal of Trump’s sort who had a tad more prudence in his or her intellectual arsenal would avoid running for political office. Buying politicians is one thing, but actually being one puts you in a spotlight that you’d rather avoid and might just attract too much attention to stuff you’d just as soon keep under wraps.

Had Trump merely remained the comic self promoter that he was before running for office he would not be subject to criminal charges today, no matter the extent of his crimes. It was his entry into politics, the spotlight that entry cast on his criminal nature, and the obvious fact that he committed crimes while in office (he did attempt to overthrow the government, after all) that “motivated” prosecutors to go after him.

So, there’s a bit of truth to the charge that Trump’s prosecution is politically motivated. The thing is, there’s nothing wrong with that, particularly because that motivation is impelled by the imperative need to save the country from fascism. What we should really be worried about is the fact that there may be more Trumps out there, routinely breaking the law without consequence, awaiting their turn to destroy our democracy.