Quick Take: Fuel for the Bonfire
Things are bad; the Biden Justice Department just made them worse
Unless the FBI found either a dead hooker or a live altar boy in Donald Trump’s bedroom, yesterday’s raid on the former president’s Mar-a-Lago, Florida residence will go down as one of the most egregious political blunders of all time.
It may well be that there’s a legitimate dispute over documents at the bottom of this unhappy affair. But even if so, there cannot possibly have been any reason for armed FBI agents to conduct a raid on Trump’s residence. The matter could and should have been handled in the usual manner, via discussions between the Justice Department and the former president’s attorneys.
So what’s really going on? As far as MAGA is concerned, the FBI raid was nothing less than a dark state abuse of power, an underhanded attempt by the Biden Administration to damage Trump and the Republican Party politically. Never mind whether this is true or not—millions of people will believe it. As for conservatives like me who revile Donald Trump and fervently wish for his political demise, why should we applaud? For even if one disregards the propriety or otherwise of the Justice Department’s action, there remains the distinct possibility that Trump might profit from it politically.
Is it really necessary to point out that America today is politically polarized to a degree not seen since the Sixties? Even people who usually pay scant attention to politics know this. Joe Biden ran for president on the promise of restoring normality to American politics. He would be a steady, low-key, moderate chief executive; once more, the adults would be in charge. Well, we’ve seen how that worked out in practice. Biden has turned out to be just as bad as Trump, albeit in different ways. And instead of smoothing out the nation’s divisions, he’s made them worse than ever.
Of course, the current president is not entirely to blame. Trump’s atrocious post-election behavior, his refusal to accept defeat, his attempt by fair means and foul to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election, not only demonstrated his unfitness for the presidency or any political office, but aborted the closure that once upon a time was vouchsafed by a presidential election. With the events of late 2020 and early 2021, the crisis of legitimacy that has blighted American politics for twenty years reached a culminating point. Let us not forget that the original election truthers were Democrats. Before Donald Trump rejected an electoral outcome, Al Gore and Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams did much the same thing.
A fish rots from the head down. This crisis of legitimacy at the summit of American politics has gradually infected all institutions of government, from Congress to local school boards. And while a certain skepticism regarding government is the sign of a normal and healthy body politic, a complete lack of faith is a deadly cancer.
It’s too bad that millions of Americans refuse to accept the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s presidency. It may be true—I for one believe it’s true—that like Donald Trump before him Joe Biden is absolutely unfit for the high office he occupies. That, however, is beside the point. Biden won that office fair and square; the Trump mob’s claim that the election was stolen from their hero is simply a lie. But the FBI raid on Trump’s residence will only reinforce the paranoia that keeps the lie alive. So unless there turns out to be a very good reason why the Justice Department acted as it did, Biden & Co. have just hosed gasoline onto the bonfire of American politics.