It’s too early, of course; many a Presidential candidate has emerged out of the primordial ooze to evolve from a near unknown to the nominee in three years. In the case of the Republicans (and the Democrats too) such an emergence is greatly to be wished. However, two objectives will remain constant: it is imperative that the lying, Machiavellian, totalitarianism-embracing Democrats be ejected from both branches of the government with sufficient force that they ponder their sins and reform, and that Donald Trump does not return to the Presidency.

Trump himself isn’t dangerous. If fact, in many ways he was an effective President, and his policies were more often reasonable than not; my objections to him as President involve character and style (and they are major objections that his accomplishments cannot counter-balance). However, the Left’s reaction to him is an existential threat. They have convinced themselves that eliminating him is a mission that must be accomplished by any means necessary, and they will continue to work to terrify the weak-minded, inattentive and gullible from now until the 2024 election…and, if necessary, after, no matter what the consequences may be.

They succeeded in convincing millions of Americans that he would destroy the country when he was elected the first time; he didn’t, but their tactics against him nearly did, and might yet. The nation cannot withstand another polarizing election with both sides claiming the other is trying to wreck all that is good about America, and with Trump as the Republican nominee.

The polls at this point show Trump defeating not merely Biden in 2024 but also Kamala Harris or Hillary Clinton if they were the opposition. It is hard to imagine any of the other Democratic nominees-in-waiting doing much better. They could count on the substantial “Anyone but Trump” bloc and little else: it is inconceivable that the loathsome Elizabeth Warren, antediluvian crypto-Commie Bernie Sanders, feckless Pete Buttegieg or phony Stacy Abrams would perform better in 2024 than Biden unless he were literally a drooling incompetent. The Republican Party has demonstrated no integrity whatsoever regarding its obligation to nominate qualified and responsible candidates when it believes that an irresponsible or unqualified one might put the party in power. Something, or someone, has got to stop Trump. I suggested here before that if some cosmic author of our fate came up with the plot that the United States must depend on the worst character imaginable as its bulwark against a permanent loss of liberty, that deity was a sadist or a comedian.

Meanwhile, the current mutation of the Democratic Party and its allies ( “the resistance” and the news media) seem determined to, in the parlance of the Vietnam era, destroy democracy in order to save it. The House’s January 6 committee is the equivalent of a kangaroo court: no member was allowed to participate unless they had voted to impeach Trump for the same alleged conduct that the committee is supposedly investigating whether it occurred or not. Think about that: all of the investigators already voted, without evidence or due process, that Trump was guilty, and now they are pretending to be a fair and just body investigating what they had already decided was true.

It is the House Un-American Activities Committee all over again, but this time it’s aimed at a party and a President, and, in the long term, democracy itself. While this disgrace to the Constitution is going on, multiple state attorneys general are hunting Trump and his family, and have been doing so since 2016. The plan is to “get him,” to prove he has committed crimes, and lock him up, literally. It is the essence of a political prosecution, and the goal, make no mistake, is not justice but political expediency.

The Democratic Party sees Trump, quite correctly, as an obstacle to its agenda, and were it not for that, the various investigations would not be occurring. This is a dangerous precedent. It might be the most dangerous precedent; this was what Gerald Ford sought to prevent when he pardoned Richard Nixon at a time when Nixon was a lot less popular than Donald Trump is today.

In saying this, I have no illusions about Trump’s likely law-breaking in various business maneuvers. I also have no illusions about abuse of the prosecutor’s function and power: if well-funded prosecutors set out to prove anyone is a law-breaker, they are likely to be able to do it. For the degree of prosecutor zeal to be determined by partisan political objectives is a direct threat to democracy.

Most prosecutors may even agree with that analysis, but would argue, as so many journalists now argue regarding their obligation to be objective and fair, that Trump is a special case, and normal professional ethics should be suspended. Seldom has Rationalization #31. The Troublesome Luxury: “Ethics is a luxury we can’t afford right now”loomed so large and menacingIt’s a deadly slippery slope, and we can already see it slipping: Democrats and progressives are now salivating over the possibility that they will be able to preserve their shaky majority in the House by re-purposing a dead-letter Constitutional provision, Section Three of the 14th Amendment, which prevented former Confederates of any rank from holding elected office after the Civil War.

The provision banned any individual who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies” of the Constitution. The Hill this month quoted Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) saying, “The point is that the constitutional purpose is clear, to keep people exactly like Donald Trump and other traitors to the union from holding public office.” This is why Democrats keep up the Big Lie that January 6, 2021 was an “insurrection”—so that any Republicans who questioned the Presidential election results could be legally banned from office. Most Constitutional scholars think this is crap, but never underestimate the effect of panic on integrity. The Star Chamber Jan. 6 committee is pretty clearly laying the groundwork for such an argument.

Taking Donald Trump out of the equation—don’t ask me how—is only one-half of the solution to getting the nation and its political system to begin the long journey back to sanity and function. Something has to be done to knee-cap the radical, anti-democratic, anti-free speech, anti-Capitalism, anti-due process, totalitarian-trending Left, which is energized by hatred of Trump and is also supported by the news media, which has become a propaganda organ that occasionally ventures into honest reporting. All I can say is “First things first.”

Trump is one man, an ethics corrupter to be sure, but still he’s just one. The Axis of Unethical Conduct that opposes him is a frightening alliance of institutions, professionals, wealthy patrons, activists and more. I hope, without knowing, that removing Trump (and replacing him with an effective, more ethical and less toxic leader who believes in American values) will weaken the non-Trump end of the equation.

I know for absolute certain that if Trump runs again, either as a Republican or as a third Party candidate, the results will be disastrous.