We require additional Democratic opposition against the erosion of democratic norms by the left

I used to idolize the Democratic Party. For me, this was the party of the Kennedys and Franklin Delano Roosevelt—great, if flawed, politicians who helped transform America during the twentieth century. Coming of age in the 1990s, I saw Bill Clinton as the embodiment of all those great Democrats.

That is why I worked so hard to find a role in the Clinton White House—albeit in its last couple months, as Al Gore and George W. Bush fought in the Supreme Court and cynicism surged in the West Wing (anybody remember the missing “Ws” from White House keyboards?)—and why I spent much of my career after that working to elect Democrats, including Joe Biden in 2020.

But I also live and work in the real world, so I have seen the damage that the Democratic Party has done to America during Biden’s reign. And it’s getting worse. Witness the prosecution of former President Trump and the unprecedented guilty verdict rendered against him last week.

Much ink has already been spilled about the danger the guilty verdict poses to America. It is an act of political retribution that is unprecedented in American history, a dangerous step for a country that set the global standard for even-handed constitutional government. It also reflects a flawed and biased legal process. Indeed, I suspect that most people involved in the Trump prosecution assume the conviction will be reversed on appeal. They may be right.

That makes no difference. The Trump prosecution served one purpose: to tar Trump as a “convicted felon” and to give Biden an excuse not to debate him or otherwise subject himself to the rigors of a campaign. In that sense, the prosecution of Trump is no different than the lockdowns and paranoia of 2020, when Democrats used Covid-19 as an excuse to shut down the political campaign and hide Biden from public scrutiny.

That was when my disillusionment with Biden started. It has only grown. As I have written elsewhere, Biden’s administration has done everything that Democrats said Trump would do to undermine democracy: prosecute their political opponents; suppress dissent; attack families; and destabilize the world with never-ending foreign wars. And it’s only going to get worse if Biden wins a second term.

This does not mean I have any love for Trump. I am concerned that, despite the tremendous public support he has gotten after the verdict, he will turn back into the establishment Republican that he governed as during his first term. I am concerned that he lacks the intellectual curiosity and discipline to govern during a true emergency.

After all, the Covid paranoia started on Trump’s watch. I believe the extraordinary times we are living in require extraordinary leadership. I have serious doubts about Trump’s ability to provide that, in part because I doubt he has the humility to reach across the aisle and work with the people who are trying to imprison him, something America needs to recover from this toxic period.

In that sense, I disagree with one author’s suggestion that the only way to recover from the politicized Trump prosecution is for Republicans to prosecute high-ranking Democrats for their transgressions. As the pollster Mark Penn pointed out, Republicans started this back in the ‘90s when they used Clinton’s shady personal life to justify dubious legal proceedings against a president that they couldn’t beat at the ballot box.

The way to respond to this transgression is not to retaliate against Democrats but to deny them the votes they think they are entitled to. Maybe that means you vote for Trump. Maybe that means you vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Cornel West. Maybe it means you don’t vote for president (something I never recommend but can understand).

But don’t reward Biden and hope things will get better. They won’t. This is not about Trump, just like the Monica Lewinsky impeachment wasn’t about Clinton. It’s about power. It’s about denying Americans a fair playing field on which to debate the issues and decide which direction the country heads in, just like the DNC denied Democrats who wanted it a fair primary campaign.

To his credit, Penn is one of the few Democrats who publicly opposed both the Clinton and Trump lawfare. Good for him. My friend RFK, Jr., is another. Add my name to that list.

Let’s send a message to all people in power: American has real problems. We need real solutions. And if Trump—or RFK or anybody else—wants to throw their hat into the ring and talk about those issues, we should let them, no matter how much you may hate them.