The Italian political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli famously mused in The Prince that although it is preferable to have both, it is better for a political leader to be feared rather than loved.
A leader who is loved but not feared is easily taken advantage of, Machiavelli writes. But the fear of punishment is far stronger at maintaining respect.
“Men have less hesitation to offend one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared,” Machiavelli writes, “for love is held by a chain of obligation, which, because men are wicked, is broken at every opportunity for their own utility, but fear is held by a dread of punishment that never forsakes you.”
Fear or dread of punishment is a powerful thing. It is the entire reason that the criminal justice system is set up to inflict consequences for actions harmful to civic society. Without laws that punish wrongdoing, chaos reigns.
But as Machiavelli wrote 500 years ago, fear is also a formidable tool for leaders. To challenge a feared leader is to risk retribution. It serves as a means of strengthening authority, engendering respect among subjects, and quashing defiance from dissidents.
Fear then, serves as a legitimator for those who seek and hold power. But that fear can be maintained only if the power one holds is actually used. A man can carry a sheathed sword at his waist, but unless he convinces those around him that he will wield it to their detriment, it remains a sheathed sword.
When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he famously quipped during a presidential debate that Hillary Clinton would be in jail if he were president. But during his inauguration events in 2017, he invited the crowd to give his defeated opponent an ovation in a gesture of goodwill that was supposed to help the nation heal from a divisive election. His Department of Justice never pursued charges against Clinton, nor any other Democratic leader, and the matter was considered closed.
But the Democratic Party never forgave Trump for winning the 2016 election. And it immediately concocted a plan to punish him through the instruments of civil authority that were available to it. In other words, the party wielded the political power that it controlled, and as it accumulated more power, it expanded its agenda and instilled fear in its opponents. The sword was drawn.
Those were the stakes of the 2020 election. Trump needed to win that year to avoid a criminal prosecution from those who sought to wield the criminal justice system as a weapon against him. His opponents in the Democratic Party were not shy about their ambitions, and when President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, his administration quickly launched criminal investigations into the former president. The end result was four indictments in various jurisdictions: two federal cases, and two state cases.
On Thursday evening, that campaign of power politics reached its zenith as a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records. These were charges that were filed under dubious circumstances by a district attorney who campaigned on targeting the former president, used novel legal theories, and was supported and aided by a judge who wore his partisanship on his sleeve.
But even as Republicans expressed shock and dismay as they lined up to decry the verdict as a sham, politically motivated show trial, the message of fear had been sent. Any figure who dares to challenge the regime’s entrenched power will be subjected to civil and criminal legal harassment. As Trump said Friday morning, “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone.”
And do this to anyone they already have. As far back as the Obama administration, the IRS was targeting conservative groups, but the Biden administration has only ramped up the stakes. Instead of using administrative law to harass his opponents, the Biden administration has enlisted the Department of Justice to jail the members of political movements it opposes.
While the charges started with felony charges against confused protesters who wandered into the Capitol building alongside rioters on Jan. 6, 2021, they later expanded to everyday people who were simply living their lives in their community in peace while making their voices heard on issues that matter to them.
In September 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland published a memo that directed the FBI to investigate parents who raised concerns about closed schools, racially charged lessons, and pornographic material at school board meetings. This memo led the FBI to visit several parents who were reported simply because of their membership in parent groups such as Moms for Liberty.
In 2022, the same Department of Justice launched a devastatingly effective witch hunt that continues unabated to this day against docile protesters who dare to pray and sing hymns outside of abortion clinics. Juries in Washington, Nashville, and elsewhere have validated this persecution to the point where dozens of defendants face years in prison, and a wheelchair-bound concentration camp survivor now faces jail time for praying to end abortion. To add to its list of persecuted groups, in January 2023, the FBI was caught targeting Catholic groups that prefer traditional forms of worship in Latin.
But as their political rivals shatter every standard and norm of political discourse, the Republican Party has dithered and fretted over its own use of the levers of power, fearful of its rivals and how the use of power would be publicly perceived.
In Georgia, the state’s Republican attorney general, Christopher Carr, has a pretty compelling case that Democratic Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who brought one of the cases against Trump, committed perjury during a disqualification hearing earlier this year. But rather than pursue charges against Willis, he has sat on his hands and ignored it all.
On the legislative front, Republicans in Congress have continually shown an unwillingness to engage in hardball negotiating tactics, and when they have controlled the White House, Cabinet secretaries have rarely pushed the envelope of conservative governance at executive branch agencies, instead opting for milquetoast, corporate-friendly rulemaking that does little to advance a cultural agenda of conservatism. The time-honored refrain “What if the roles were reversed?” has hampered any willingness to use government power, with the implication being that the Democratic Party would not pursue loathsome policies and actions unless Republicans set the standard first. As often as Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) warns his Democratic colleagues that they would regret setting new standards for their short-term benefit, he has watched his political rivals casually dismiss him and press forward. Yet at the same time, he has never placed the Democrats in a similar position.
The GOP’s approach to political power has usually centered on seeking to be loved by the establishment institutions rather than feared. But in its foolhardy quest for mainstream acceptance, it is now despised by not only the establishment but by its own voters. In the meantime, the Democratic Party is loved by established institutions in business, government, media, and academia while feared by the Right. And with the conviction of its chief political rival, the party has crossed yet another Rubicon that Republicans never dreamed would happen.
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If there is any hope for effective conservative political leadership and governance, the fear of reversed roles must be set aside for the assertive posture required to lead and govern. Optics cannot dictate what policies or actions are pursued, but only how they serve the prosperity and well-being of the people.
If that means Republican district attorneys and attorneys general are prosecuting Democrats for ticky-tack crimes, then so be it, because right now, the GOP and its voters are the only ones afraid of those in power. A party that is unwilling to use the power given to it will always be destroyed by a party that is. And until the Democratic Party is afraid of all Republicans, not just Trump, it will continue its lawfare campaign against its political opponents with impunity.