The debate over which side is criminalizing politics

Former President Donald Trump now faces criminal charges in federal and Georgia courts over his effort to overturn his loss in the 2020 election to President Biden. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination, slammed the federal indictment as "an outrageous criminalization of political speech," accusing the Justice Department of "trying to make it illegal to question the results of a bad election." Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump's closest GOP rival, called the indictment handed up this week by a Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury an example of the "criminalization of politics" by Trump's enemies in the Democratic Party.

The federal indictment said Trump "had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he won." But special counsel Jack Smith's team accused Trump of pursuing "unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results." Democrats note that Trump was the one who tried to pressure Georgia officials into reversing his narrow loss in the state by "finding" enough votes to put him ahead of Biden. And they say Republicans are helping Trump attack the system that ensures fair elections. Which side is really criminalizing politics here?

The left is treating political speech like a crime

Democrats just escalated their "crusade to weaponize the criminal justice system to put their chief political opponent in jail," said Elle Purnell at The Federalist. Georgia's Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' racketeering charges targeting Trump and 18 of his lawyers and advisers send the "clear message that if you're a Republican, challenging election results — something Democrats have done after every GOP presidential victory this century — is now a criminal offense." The "hacks" at the Justice Department "also indicted Trump over a classified documents dispute," while playing nice with Biden over his mishandling of secret documents. We can't have "real elections" if the decision on whether to threaten a candidate with jail depends on what party they're in.

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The backlash over Trump's indictment could be disastrous, said Jack Goldsmith in The New York Times, especially since it comes as Republicans are complaining DOJ is going easy on Hunter Biden, the president's son. Special counsel Jack Smith's indictment makes "a factually compelling but far from legally airtight case" against Trump, accusing him of a criminal conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election result. But the case "raises tricky issues" about Trump's freedom of speech and presidential powers. If the prosecution flops, or even if it succeeds, "the costs to the legal and political systems will be large," because there's "no getting around the fact" that the Biden administration is going after the Republican most likely to be nominated to challenge Biden in 2024. "This deeply unfortunate timing looks political and has potent political implications even if it is not driven by partisan motivations."

Trump is the one who criminalized politics

"Unsurprisingly, Republicans are reacting to these charges with maximum dishonesty," said Amanda Marcotte at Salon. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who is "allegedly" battling Trump for the GOP nomination, accused prosecutors of weaponizing the legal system for political purposes. "That statement requires pointedly ignoring the fact that most of the people who have testified against Trump are Republicans." It's "so aggravating to hear Republicans disingenuously accuse Democrats of 'criminalizing politics,'" because Trump is the one who did that, by turning the GOP into a mafia and making "it clear that being a loyal Republican means being ready and willing to commit crimes for the boss, or at least to dishonor yourself by pretending you were looking the other way and didn't see anything."

"Trump has criminalized both social problems and politics itself," said Henry Giroux in The Conversation. He and his allies have "created a culture of lies, illusions, cruelty, and misrepresentation," and used it to attack "reason, critical thinking, informed judgment, and social responsibility." Trump is the "embodiment" of a crisis that started with the "right-wing counter-revolution" that emerged with Ronald Reagan's reign in the 1980s. Since then, "the democratic values that informed the social contract and common good have been increasingly displaced by market values that stress self-interest" and the "celebration of greed." Trump is a "national disgrace" but he's still virtually assured of getting nominated and has even odds of beating Biden to win the White House again. The next election will be "a choice between democracy and the further criminalization of American politics."