Who would have thought Donald Trump would be arrested before Vladimir Putin?

Or Hunter Biden.

But it happened.

And unlike Putin, who, holed up in the Kremlin, has adopted a “come and get me” stance, Trump at least had the decency to show up for his arraignment Tuesday.

He could have held out at his Florida Mar-a-Lago headquarters protected by his Secret Service detail, like Putin is doing in Moscow.

Or he could have said that his antagonist, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had no jurisdiction over him.

That what Putin’s response when he was indicted for war crimes in March by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague. He joins such company as the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi who ended up dead in a ditch.

Putin practically snarled at the ICC, in essence asking, “How many divisions does the ICC have?”

Which is what Soviet Union dictator Joe Stalin said about the Pope when he was told the Vatican wanted to play a role in the ending of World War II. “How many divisions does the Pope have?” Stalin said cynically.

It was Lavrentiy Beria, head of Stalin’s secret police, who said to Stalin, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” That is how Stalin got rid of opponents.

Those words have become the mantra of the progressive and woke Democratic Party which has turned the U.S. justice system on its head.

The Democrats in their fear and loathing of Trump have so politicized the justice system that it is turning the greatest nation in the world into a third world country.

President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, commenting on the Democratic politicization of the U.S. criminal justice system, said, “Sadly, it is very hard for U. S. foreign policy to use arguments such as ‘democracy’ and ‘free and fair elections,’ or try to condemn ‘political persecution’ in other countries from now on.”

Earlier, when the Biden Administration raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, Bukele said, “What would he U.S. government say if our police raided the house of the main possible contender of our 2024 presidential election?”

You know the U.S.is in trouble when it gets a lecture on democracy from El Salvador.

Putin is a war criminal who launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. He has been rightly indicted for killing untold numbers of women and children as well as kidnapping thousands of Ukrainian children from Ukraine to Russia.

Trump is a former playboy and philander who became president of the United States and who is running again. He is being destroyed.

He has been arrested and arraigned on pathetic charges that he inappropriately paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money to buy her silence over an alleged affair. You bring charges against a former president over that?

This is a case where even Bragg’s predecessor Cy Vance passed on, as did the U.S. Justice Department.

But it was brought on by Bragg, who is only one of 62 district attorneys in the state of New York, one for each county.

Had Trump lived in the Bronx or Brooklyn under a difference district attorney, rather than in Manhattan, where the rogue Bragg has jurisdiction, the case would not have seen daylight.

There are thousands of district attorneys and assistant district attorneys across the country. Many of them are Republicans.

Now that the precedent of arresting and indicting a former president has been established, there is nothing to stop a Republican district attorney from going after a Democratic president, like Joe Biden.

The Democratic Party has fractured the country.

But what goes around surely will come around.

Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.