Trump MUST be tried for his crimes, period, or the rule of law dies. It's that simple.
To fail to prosecute Trump for his crimes in the interest of unity is to sacrifice the rule of law in the interest of mutual toleration. We've not only been down that road before, we've been down it with three of the last four Republican presidents, and history has unwaveringly demonstrated that it is not merely futile in the short term, but harmful in the long term.
Not only has the criming by Republican administrations not ceased, it has gotten progressively more egregious.
Letting Nixon off the hook for Watergate gave way to Iran-Contra under Reagan.
And Carter was still vilified in the interim.
Letting Reagan off the hook for Iran-Contra gave way to fabricated intelligence under Bush the Lesser.
And Clinton was still vilified in the interim.
Letting Bush the Lesser off the hook for fabricated intelligence gave way to Trump and all his many crimes.
And Obama was still vilified in the interim.
The pattern here is unmistakable.
We MUST restore the rule of law if we are to have any hope, or future Republican administrations will commit even worse crimes, as hard as that is to imagine, because they'll know that our instinct to seek unity will mean that they can get away with it. It is a recipe for guaranteed disaster.
At its core, this impulse is driven by the recognition that mutual toleration is necessary to the survival of a healthy, functioning democracy, but we must recognize that Republicans have been trying to kill mutual toleration for much of our lifetimes, as evidenced by their consistent and rank hypocrisy, and we must also recognize Trump himself finally succeeded in killing mutual toleration, with his refrain of "Lock Her Up", for conduct that had already been clearly adjudicated to NOT be criminal.
The reality is that Republicans refuse to tolerate LEGAL conduct by Democrats, while tolerating ILLEGAL conduct by Republicans. This is beyond dispute at this point.
The key difference here is that we on the left want to see Trump tried, convicted, and imprisoned not because his conduct was abhorrent politically, but because his conduct was criminal, legally.
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