Trump's attacks on prosecutors are ominous — but they won't work

Donald Trump turned his March 26 rally in Waco, Texas, into an occasion to denounce the multiple criminal investigations that are now closing in on him and the prosecutors who are leading them. He called the "weaponization of our justice system" the "central issue of our time."

He singled out by name Mathew Colangelo, who last December transferred from the Justice Department in Washington to join Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's investigation of the former president. Trump claimed that Colangelo's presence was evidence that the investigation is being orchestrated by his political enemies and the national Democratic Party.

After boldly pronouncing himself the "most innocent man in America," he tried to stoke the grievances of his audience by saying "They're not coming after me, they're coming after you."

Saturday's effort to discredit and intimidate prosecutors was the culmination of a week of escalating, violent threats against them. Trump's threats are an effort to undermine public confidence in the legal system.

But as dangerous as they are, they may not be working as he hoped.  

Recall that on March 24, Trump took his extremist social media rants to new heights. In social media posts after 1 a.m., he attacked Bragg as an "animal" and a "degenerate psychopath." Bragg's grand jury is reportedly considering an indictment of Trump.

While many have underestimated the seriousness of the charges apparently being considered against Trump, the ex-president is likely not among them. A financial cover-up to keep a scandal away from the voters may have helped elect him president. Plenty of others have been indicted for the crimes with which he is expected to be charged, and there are inmates serving time at Rikers Island who have done far less.

Trump's desperation is clear. On Friday, he called on his supporters to "take our nation back," echoing his speech moments before the violence of Jan. 6, 2021. In case anyone missed the call to violence this time, he said in an earlier post, "Our country is being destroyed as they tell us to be peaceful."

Translation: "Don't be peaceful." On Friday, the first death threat letter against Bragg was reported.

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These events, along with his congressional enablers' attacks on Bragg, capture the core of Trumpism: Use media and government power to avoid accountability, attack enemies with lies, incite violence to serve self-interest. There is no time for policy or legislation to serve the people's needs, including protecting Social Security or lowering drug costs.

Fortunately, in the midterms, voters in battleground state elections rejected candidates standing on this platform. And now, as a poll conducted last week tells us, 88% of Americans say that Trump is not above the law. Even so, Trump and his allies have only escalated their extremism.

To be sure, Trump's social media postings are attempts to distract us from hard news about grand juries in New York, Atlanta and Washington, D.C., closing in on him. Just Friday, for example, Trump's own lawyer, Evan Corcoran, testified in a grand jury about his communications with Trump last June, apparently involving Trump's attempts to obstruct justice after a grand jury subpoenaed classified documents he had held improperly at Mar-a-Lago. On Tuesday, a federal court ordered former Vice President Mike Pence to testify before Jack Smith's grand jury.

There's a locomotive coming down the tracks toward Trump, and he'd rather we didn't think about it.

Still, we cannot afford to divert our eyes from the danger he poses. Rolling Stone reported recently that Trump and his inner circle are already devising plans to have the Justice Department prosecute Bragg if Trump returns to power.

Trump has plenty of MAGA Republicans' support. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., have tweeted that Bragg should be "put in jail." Republican House Committee chairs Jim Jordan, James Comer and Bryan Steil have called on Bragg to appear before Congress.

This ironic Republican intrusion on states' rights earned a prompt rejoinder from Bragg, who reminded the MAGA chairs that they have no jurisdiction over a local prosecutor. On Sunday, 175 former prosecutors released a letter challenging "efforts to intimidate or improperly influence" current prosecutors like Bragg. "[I]n a democracy, it is critical to maintain prosecutorial independence and the rule of law," the group wrote. 

Make no mistake about what is going on here. To marshal state power over foes, totalitarians move quickly to ensure that all legal traditions, including prosecution, exclusively serve the aims of the ruler.

Recall former Attorney General Bill Barr naming John Durham as a special counsel. Durham's only two prosecutions were of men perceived as Trump enemies. Fortunately, both trials were spectacular failures for Durham.

In Durham's efforts, in Trump's planning for revenge and in the actions of his MAGA enablers in Congress, we see what is promised if Trump is ever re-elected president. The essence of authoritarianism, according to Steven Levitsky, co-author of "How Democracies Die," is the willingness "to use ... the machinery of government, legal institutions, as a weapon against your rivals and your opponents."

Among the especially ominous signals are Trump's reported enjoyment of the Jan. 6 violence and a March 23 post depicting him with a baseball bat positioned next to Alvin Bragg's head. The term "fascism" is not lightly invoked, but author Jay Griffiths has observed that it "not only promotes violence but relishes it, viscerally so. It cherishes audacity, bravado and superbia, promotes charismatic leaders, demagogues and 'strong men', and seeks to flood or control the media."

Likewise, political theorist Hannah Arendt, the 20th century's foremost expert on the subject, has written that "the fascists of the 1930s elevated cruelty to a major virtue because it contradicted society's humanitarian and liberal hypocrisy." These seem near-perfect descriptors for Trump.

The good news is that accountability is coming. The legal process closing in on Trump will continue to educate voters about what he has done to destroy the rule of law. Its supporters will amplify the evidence that emerges so that the overwhelming majority of Americans remain constant in their belief that no one is above the law.

Prosecutors will continue doing their jobs. Donald Trump may pose with a bat on his shoulder, but that doesn't mean he won't swing and miss when law enforcement's high, hard fastballs start whizzing past his head.