"If They Can Do This to Trump, They Can Do it to You"
Republicans are shockingly clear: They want an untouchable strongman, not equality under the law.
As you have probably heard, the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, the golf club and hotel that former president Donald Trump claims as his home. They were reportedly after evidence that the former president illegally removed classified documents from the White House.
In response, conservatives are in an uproar. That’s not surprising: Any raid of a current or former political leader’s home is going to enrage their supporters, and there is no politician in America with fans as rabid and as primed to justify his every sin as Trump. I have to imagine that the Department of Justice weighed the possibility of a massive conservative backlash, potentially including violence, before they moved forward. And everyone is right to be concerned about how the pro-Trump right might react to the former president being criminally investigated.
What’s particularly interesting, though, is the narrative conservatives and even prominent Republicans are latching onto: Not just that this was a politically motivated act, but that it was de facto unjust because it happened to their leader, Donald Trump. They don’t argue that Trump is innocent; they argue that he should be above the law. That’s telling: And it tells us that they don’t want a president to preside over a democratic nation; they want a strong-man dictator to impose his (and their) will.
