New Republic writer Matt Ford goes after the same paragraph of mine that Nick Kristof brought up. He makes two points, neither persuasive.

First, he says that no prosecution “can really ‘bring down’ Trump,” since he could run for president from prison and likely get a lot of people to vote for him. Okay, I guess. But note the context of that quote from me. I’ve just said that we can’t know for sure what the political effect of the indictment will be. What I’m saying here is that if a dubious prosecution inflicts decisive damage on Trump — if it can be argued that it kept him from a return to the presidency — then the tactic will be replicated, and not just against Republicans.

Which brings us to Ford’s second point:

“Republican voters may grow more adamant about demanding something” is no longer an effective deterrent for anyone else in the American political system to make decisions. This is the same political party that, as an institution, formally defined the events of January 6 as “legitimate political discourse.” And there is no one in the United States less entitled to such a deferential norm than Donald Trump, who spent the 2016 campaign threatening to jail his opponent if he won. . . .

This reasoning justifies any shredding of norms, ignores that there isn’t an equivalent example of a creative Republican district attorney’s prosecution of a prominent Democratic politician, and blithely assumes our political culture can’t get worse. Also, I’m not arguing for applying a “deferential norm” to Trump; I’m arguing for not stretching the law to get him. None of us is entitled to the protections of the rule of law because of our good conduct, and none of us forfeits it because of our bad conduct.