NY Times guest essay warns there are no good solutions to ‘America’s Trump Problem’

"Eyes on the Right" Substack writer Damon Linker warned in a Sunday essay for the New York Times that while there is no perfect path forward to solve "America's Trump Problem," imprisoning Trump could be the worst option for the country.

The raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence has sparked debate not only over the politicization of the FBI, but how Trump himself should be treated by the law, which Linker examined the consequences of from several angles.

Democrats "anticipate fulfilling a dream going back to the earliest days of the Trump administration: to see him frog-marched to jail before the country and the world," Linker explained. "But this is a fantasy. There is no scenario following from the present that culminates in a happy ending for anyone, even for Democrats."

He illustrated that "prosecution of the former president" would be extremely divisive and seen by many as a power play, regardless of legal merit. 

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"This would be a Democratic administration putting the previous occupant of the White House, the ostensible head of the Republican Party and the current favorite to be the G.O.P. presidential nominee in 2024, on trial. That would set an incredibly dangerous precedent," Linker said.

He urged readers then to "Imagine" that "each time the presidency is handed from one party to the other, an investigation by the new administration’s Justice Department leads toward the investigation and possible indictment of its predecessor."

He acknowledged that letting Trump off the hook for the crimes he has been accused of has its own hazards, "Mr. Trump will have learned that becoming president has effectively immunized him from prosecution. That means the country would be facing a potential second term for Mr. Trump in which he is convinced that he can do whatever he wants with complete impunity."

But, ultimately, what Linker warned would be the direst outcome is a complete national divide based on mistrust of institutions, noting, "If the matter culminates in an indictment and trial of Mr. Trump, the Republican argument would be more of what we heard day in and day out through his administration. His defenders would claim that every person ostensibly committed to the dispassionate upholding of the rule of law is in fact motivated by rank partisanship and a drive to self-aggrandizement."

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He specified that this loss of faith in institutions "would be directed at the attorney general, the F.B.I., the Justice Department and other branches of the so-called deep state. The spectacle would be corrosive, in effect convincing most Republican voters that appeals to the rule of law are invariably a sham."

He also warned that Trump "even if convicted" and "possibly running for president from a jail cell" would be politically dangerous in an entirely new way. 

"It would be Mr. Trump versus the System. He would be reviving an old American archetype: the folk-hero outlaw who takes on and seeks to take down the powerful in the name of the people," he wrote. 

Linker harkened back to some of the political excesses that took place from the opposition during Trump’s presidency, urging readers to "Think of all those times during the Trump presidency when well-meaning sources inside and outside the administration ended up undermining their own credibility by hyping threats and overpromising evidence of wrongdoing and criminality."

While suggesting there is no perfect way forward, Linker recommended a lesser evil scenario that would still be a gamble for Democrats, writing, "That’s why it’s imperative we set aside the Plan A of prosecuting Mr. Trump. In its place, we should embrace a Plan B that defers the dream of a post-presidential perp walk in favor of allowing the political process to run its course." 

He added, "If Mr. Trump is the G.O.P. nominee again in 2024, Democrats will have no choice but to defeat him yet again, hopefully by an even larger margin than they did last time."

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He concluded, "There is an obvious risk: If Mr. Trump runs again, he might win. But that’s a risk we can’t avoid — which is why we may well have found ourselves in a situation with no unambivalently good options."