Trump's Supporters Really Concern Me

 

Whatever one thinks of the New York indictment against Donald Trump, the reaction by his supporters has been truly alarming.  It would be one thing if they focused on the flimsiness of the charges, the degree to which the law had to be strained to bring them, the lack of an underlying crime, maybe a reference or two to the precedents of Monica Lewinsky or John Edwards (supported at the time by Democrats), that technical crimes undertaken to conceal a sexual impropriety are simply not a public concern, and the obvious conclusion from all this that the prosecution must be politically motivated. All of this is, in my opinion, a good point.

There are clear advantages to taking this approach.  It appeals to a broad cross-section of the public, including many Trump critics, and would therefore give Trump defenders the moral high ground of claiming to speak for (most of) the people. It would divide Trump opponents between critics of the indictment and defenders of the indictment.  It casts Democratic defenders of the indictment as hypocrites, since they presumably took a different view when it was Bill Clinton or John Edwards in the hot seat.  And really, there would be no need to say anything further, at least for now.

But, of course, there is one problem with this approach.

It admits the hypothetical possibility that an indictment could be legitimate if the crimes were more serious.  And we all know that possibility is considerably more than hypothetical.  So Republicans are now in the ridiculous position of arguing that ex-Presidents should be exempt from all prosecution.  (What if they shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue?).  Or else that the act of running for President should exempt the candidate from prosecution. And this on behalf of a man who led chants of "Lock her up!"