America is being ruled by a regime of elite interests

OPINION:

The indictment, arrest and arraignment of former President Donald Trump inaugurate a dangerous new era in the life of the American republic. When history tends to repeat itself, it is rare to find something genuinely new. When something new arises, then we have an obligation to take note — not just what has happened, but why.

What has happened is simple enough: After eight years of uniformly futile attempts to curb, stop, indict, hinder, impeach, remove and depose Mr. Trump — as candidate, president and then ex-president — one local prosecutor has managed to make something stick.

It sticks enough for an indictment, which is not at all the same as a conviction. Anyone betting on the former already had long odds — anyone betting on the latter should still expect to lose their money. Nevertheless, the effort continued over most of a decade and will probably continue even after this because of what Mr. Trump signifies. If we understand America as being ruled by a regime of elite interests rather than a genuine representation of the people, then that regime is determined to shut down that representation. It is, after all, the greatest threat to itself.

One of Mr. Trump’s favorite lines is a variation on the warning that “they” — this same regime — are really after the American people, and he’s just in the way. It has the virtue of being entirely true. It isn’t that they don’t hate him for him, although they do. They hate him most because he gained power despite them.

And to be clear, this regime is not restricted by partisan lines. Convinced of their right to rule, they resort to any means to preserve it. That means mobilizing the whole apparatus of governance — the formal and informal states in media, academia and institutions — toward that end. So, we see all those mechanisms fall into line with one another. News organizations cannot report on Mr. Trump and his supporters without editorializing; media strives to render him an object of ridicule; financial institutions refuse to do business with those affiliated with him; technology firms refuse access to him and his supporters on threadbare pretexts; and, of course, the legal system sends forth investigatory tendrils, unnumbered and relentless, until one of them at last connects.

The why of it all is equally simple, albeit more profound — and, properly understood, much more threatening: A country dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal does not live up to it when its powers are oriented toward unequal and iniquitous treatment.

What’s happening to Mr. Trump now is manifestly an example of that and a profound break from the American tradition of refusing to prosecute — to say nothing of investigate — former presidents. Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, for example, were all plausible subjects of post-presidential investigation, perhaps even into the realm of the criminal. Yet none of it happened because American civics writ large possessed the prudential wisdom to refrain: One of the easily forgotten principles of a healthy democratic republic is that it must be safe to leave office. (Nixon came closest to it, and although his pardon by then-President Gerald Ford sparked a contemporaneous furor, it is now regarded as an episode of great wisdom in American history.)

Now, it is not safe to leave office — and if the first victim of this new era is Mr. Trump, then the second may well be President Biden. The magnitude of the latter’s alleged foreign ties, personal and familial, portends prosecutorial potential. Moreover, this new era for presidents will likely have a trickle-down effect on all elected offices and public service in our country. The stakes for Americans to step up and lead in our representative democracy are now higher than ever.

That is if we have equal justice under the law.

What happens to Mr. Trump now has happened to Americans before him. Everyone knows by now the cost of crossing the regime and its orthodoxies. Small entrepreneurs who want to follow their conscience are hounded by relentless bureaucratic persecution. Americans who post political jokes online are tried and convicted. Citizens who protest in unacceptable ways are jailed and prosecuted. Individuals who refuse the cant and tropes of the regime are locked out of the public square, and on and on and on.

In that light, the Trump arraignment is something new and something old. It is something new because the persecution of a former president has never happened in quite this way before. It is something old that the American people have been living under this iniquity for far too long.

We are in a dangerous new era in the life of the American republic. That’s because of the regime, its eager helpers, and their work. But they are not the sole authors of the American story. The pen is in our hands too, and we get to write and tell what comes next.

• Brooke Leslie Rollins is president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute.