Whether or not former President Donald Trump is guilty of violating laws relating to his possession of government documents after his term of office had finished is almost beside the point. 

Whether he created, as some assert, a grave threat to our national security, or his crimes are more akin, as others claim, to the possession of overdue library books, the federal charges serve an overtly political purpose that cannot be ignored. The entire spectacle is meant to tarnish and humiliate the Republican frontrunner for the presidency in 2024 and, by extension, tarnish all other Republican candidates for office in order to improve the electoral prospects of Democrats who are running uphill to defend records that are, truth be told, basically indefensible.

This is one hell of a gamble that will lock our nation into warring camps and further shred—perhaps irreparably—the already tattered faith of a great many Americans in our institutions of government and those who run them. If Trump and his fellow Republicans are ultimately triumphant, a great many Americans will view their elections as illegitimate and a threat to democracy. If Democrats are able to convince voters they are worthy of re-election, it might presage a split in our nation that will divide America into implacable blocs of Red and Blue states that view one another with mutual contempt and distrust. 

The endgame here seems a destructive political war, and I worry the ongoing and extraordinary efforts to demonize Donald Trump are a grave mistake being made by those who are willing to win at any cost—up to and including creating the conditions for a national divorce.

Extremists who are funded and encouraged by those with lots of money and little common sense care little for the catastrophic damage they are causing to our country. Creating chaos, sowing suspicions, fomenting hatreds, and encouraging division to win votes is a short term strategy with disastrous long term consequences. Viable and enduring solutions to most political, social, and economic problems are typically the products of discussion and compromise, but those leftists who pontificate with venomous words and clenched fists believe, as fanatics always do, that compromise is defeat, so victory by any means necessary is the only recourse.

Their extremism, rage, and blindness disgusts the many, many sensible citizens of our nation and is causing a crisis of faith in the future of our country. One need only look at our desperate shortfalls in military recruitment, descent into widespread drug and alcohol use, and daily avoidance of contact with others to see the symptoms of a country that has numbed itself to notions of common purpose and duty as a defense mechanism against engaging with the craziness we see all around us. 

A weary and pervasive fear of retribution for speaking out—and a concurrent retreat from public engagement by many—has left the conduct of our nation in the hands of those who define themselves by whom they hate rather than what they believe. Those whose voices now dominate are, more often than not, intent on defending their out-of-touch ideologies rather than finding real world solutions, so our problems continue to fester in full view of those whose voices are ignored and dismissed. 

The frightened woman who is terrified about walking to her car after working a night shift, the business owner who watches shoplifters brazenly walk out the door with merchandise because a confrontation might turn into a social media sensation and lawsuit, and the towns and cities overwhelmed with illegal immigrants who are bankrupting taxpayers are all fed up and frustrated.

Moreover, we are saddled with public schools that often seem uninterested in educating our children (but are wildly interested in their sexuality) and police forces that no longer apprehend criminals. Unsurprisingly, the brave members of our armed forces wonder why they should continue to risk their lives for a nation that disdains their sacrifices, professes disgust about its own existence, and seems hell bent on self-destruction. 

Parents who are trying to raise decent children in a society where what was at one time considered pornographic is now our daily mainstream entertainment (or, in some cases, our school curriculum) cannot believe their concerns are a source of derision or neglect. People of faith who are told their beliefs and values make them bigots that must be shunned and shamed at every turn wonder why personal standards and accountability are now so readily discarded. Decency is apparently an outdated—and unwelcome—concept in the America we inhabit today.

All these Americans and many more besides want solutions not sloganeering, and they know that show trials and political show-offs are certain not going to improve their lives.

This is insanity. Just as the many months of hearings regarding the protests at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th of 2021 did nothing whatsoever to protect our families, strengthen our economy, or ensure our fundamental rights, so will years of prosecutorial persecution of Donald Trump fail to solve the corruption in our government, reduce our rampaging national debt, or restore our faith in our flagrantly failing institutions of governance.

Show trials are made-for-television spectacles that only serve to prove just how far our nation has now fallen into a frightening extremist fever while also further enraging our already disastrously divided country.

This has to stop, but those intent on maintaining and enhancing their own unwarranted powers are heedless of the cliff toward which they are steering our nation and its people.