The tell was always there when Democrats, their media and their prosecutors kept on arguing that Trump represented a “threat to democracy”. The various cases against President-elect Trump were not serious methodically argued products of an objective legal process, but successors to Russiagate whose original and final purpose had always been election interference.

The rule of thumb is that current and future candidates are targeted with personal legal cases aimed at wearing them down and disqualifying them as presidential candidates, while sitting presidents have their administrations targeted in order to inhibit their functioning.

The abandonment of the Trump cases simply signals that the ‘resistance’ is moving from the former to the latter.

Jack Smith, like Mueller, was only the latest in a succession of propped up figures who played the inquisitioner role for an audience of MSNBC viewers and Washington Post readers. Everyone else with common sense knew how this would play out. And that’s why they cared very little.

Smith dropped the nonsensical election subversion case now that the election has been won. There will be other cases and other front men, but they will be aimed at the incoming administration and figures around it. The investigations of Trump’s conduct in Term 2 will be generated on schedule, but their aim will be to create chaos and inhibit the administration. What was election interference will move on to interference with a duly elected administration by special prosecutors, state prosecutors and a crew of activist lawyers employed by major organizations.

One wave of lawfare is dead. The next is being developed now.