Commentators have long speculated on why millions of Americans remain fanatically committed to Donald Trump.       

There has been far less speculation on why so many law enforcers have turned a blind eye to Trump’s decades of criminality, if not treason.

Among those guilty:

• The Justice Department did not indict Trump for the series of threats he made—directly and indirectly—against Republicans and Democrats throughout the 2016 Presidential campaign. 
• The United States Secret Service did not charge him with threatening the life of Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: “Hillary [Clinton] wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.” 
• The Justice Department did not prosecute Trump for treason, even though he solicited aid from Russia, a nation hostile to the United States. On July 27, 2016. Trump publicly invited “Russia”—i.e., Vladimir Putin—to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails: “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

There are at least two reasons why Trump has been allowed to insult and even threaten prosecutors and judges without facing the punishment an ordinary citizen would:

Cowardice: They fear Trump will slander them by claiming he’s the victim of a “witch hunt” to remove him from the 2024 Presidential race.

And/or they fear physical attack from his legions of fanatical followers.

Awe of the Presidency:  They fear their careers will be tainted by prosecuting or judging a man who won the votes of 70 million Americans. 

There are, however, remedies for both cowardice and awe:

Cowardice:  Prosecutors and judges should expect threats and slanders from Trump. This is how he has traditionally responded to attempts to hold him legally accountable. 

If judges and prosecutors fear violence from Trump’s fanatical followers, they can easily obtain round-the-clock protection by local and/or federal law enforcement agencies.

Awe: Trump is no longer President. He no longer commands Presidential immunity nor the powers of that office—such as being able to cite “executive privilege” to prevent the release of documents or testimony.

His refusals to accept this reality should be bluntly ignored. 

More importantly, as President, he:

• Took no action to protect Americans from the deadly COVID-19 virus;
• Constantly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the United States; 
• Attacked the independent judiciary and free press;
• Praised Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen;
• Fired FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump and turn the agency into Trump’s private police force;
• Used his position as President to further enrich himself in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution;
• Attacked and alienated America’s oldest democratic allies, such as Canada and Great Britain;
• Refused to accept the results of a legitimate Presidential election; and
• Incited a deadly attack on Congress so he could illegally remain in office.

Those are only some of the despicable actions he took while in office.

The Presidency has long held most Americans in awe. This is largely because the man (and it’s always been a man) who holds it is elected by all Americans, and not just those of a particular city or state.

And he alone has control of America’s enormous military—the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force—as well as a nuclear arsenal that can literally destroy all life on Earth.

Americans have long assumed that a victorious Presidential candidate has been blessed by God, and thus automatically commands a respect—if not reverence—denied to ordinary mortals.

But respect must be earned. And anyone guilty of even a small number of the crimes committed by Donald Trump long ago forfeited any right to such regard.

Once a President leaves office, he should be treated as any other American citizen—and held to the same standards as an ordinary citizen.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman and father of modern political science, has eloquently warned of the dangers of ignoring this truth: 

…No well-ordered republic should ever cancel the crimes of its citizens by their merits.  But having established rewards for good actions and penalties for evil ones, and having rewarded a citizen for conduct who afterwards commits a wrong, he should be chastised for that without regard to his previous merits.  And a state that properly observes this principle will long enjoy its liberty, but if otherwise, it will speedily come to ruin. 

For if a citizen who has rendered some eminent service to the state should add to the reputation and influence which he has thereby acquired the confident audacity of being able to commit any wrong without fear of punishment, he will in a little while become so insolent and overbearing as to put an end to all power of the law.  

Putting an end to “all power of the law” and setting himself up as “The Law” is precisely what Donald Trump tried to do after losing the 2020 Presidential election—and is still trying to do.

Donald Trump has lost the Presidential immunity shielding him from a wide range of civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions.      

He now faces unprecedented challenges from a legal system that had long ignored his rampant criminality.

Thus, regaining that Presidential immunity is arguably the biggest reason why he wants to become President again. 

Although he no longer holds the Presidency, Trump repeatedly acts as though he does. He has asserted “executive privilege” on behalf of former members of his administration to block their testimony before courts, grand juries and even the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith.

He hid behind layers of Secret Service protection while attacking Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and even New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over his arraignment and trial in the Stormy Daniels hush money payment case.

Juan Merchan

“The criminal is the district attorney because he illegally leaked massive amounts of grand jury information,” Trump told supporters at Mar-a-Lago. “For which he should be prosecuted, or at a minimum he should resign.”

As for Merchan: “I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter work[ed] for Kamala Harris.”

In Trump’s vocabulary, “Trump-hating” is the absolute worst sin/crime that can be committed.

Another man he has attacked as a “Trump hater” is Special Counsel Jack Smith, who’s also investigating Trump’s role in inciting his followers to attack Congress on January 6, 2021.

Jack Smith

The purpose of that attack: To stop the Electoral College vote count that would certify former Vice President Joseph Biden as the actual winner of the 2020 Presidential election.

In a July 4, 2023 post on his website, Truth Social, Trump falsely claimed:

“As my Poll numbers go higher & higher, the Communists, Marxists, & Fascists get more & more CRAZY with their ridiculous Indictments & Election Interference plans & plots, all controlled by an out of control, & very corrupt, DOJ/FBI. They have WEAPONIZED Law Enforcement in America at a level not seen before.”

Trump’s reference to “Communists, Marxists, & Fascists” as his enemies is particularly noteworthy. 

He was, after all, the President who:

• Defended Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against findings by the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency that Russia had interfered in the 2020 Presidential election;
• Boasted that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “fell in love” after an exchange of letters; and
• Praised Chinese strongman Xi Jinping for making himself “President-for-Life: “No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.” 

Given his subsequent efforts to remain in office despite losing the 2020 Presidential election, it’s clear that he had himself in mind when he “joked” about “giving that a shot some day.”

In his post, Trump continued: “Deranged Jack Smith, who is a sick puppet for A.G. Garland & Crooked Joe Biden, should be DEFUNDED & put out to rest. Republicans must get tough or the Dems will steal another Election. MAGA!”

By “A.G. Garland” Trump meant Attorney General Merrick Garland. By “put out to rest,” he meant that his followers should assassinate Smith.

Despite all this, Trump’s millions of Right-wing followers remain fanatically loyal to him.

Why?

On August 30, 2017, an article in Salon examined why Donald Trump’s base supports him so fanatically: “Most Americans Strongly Dislike Trump, But the Angry Minority That Adores Him Controls Our Politics.”

It described these voters as representing about one-third of the Republican party:

“These are older and more conservative white people, for the most part, who believe he should not listen to other Republicans and should follow his own instincts…. 

“They like Trump’s coarse personality, and approve of the fact that he treats women like his personal playthings. They enjoy it when he expresses sympathy for neo-Nazis and neo-Confederate white supremacists.

Supporters giving the Nazi “Sieg Heil” salute to Trump

“They cheer when he declares his love for torture, tells the police to rough up suspects and vows to mandate the death penalty for certain crimes. (Which of course the president cannot do.)

“…This cohort of the Republican party didn’t vote for Trump because of his supposed policies on trade or his threat to withdraw from NATO. They voted for him because he said out loud what they were thinking. A petty, sophomoric, crude bully is apparently what they want as a leader.”

What is harder to explain is why so many law enforcers have turned a blind eye to Trump’s decades of criminality, if not treason. Among those who have: 

• Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates. After Bondi dropped the Trump University case, he wrote her a $25,000 check for her re-election campaign. The money came from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
• Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton moved to muzzle a former state regulator who says he was ordered in 2010 to drop a fraud investigation into Trump University for political reasons. After the Texas case was dropped, Trump cut a $35,000 check to the gubernatorial campaign of then-attorney general and now Texas Governor Greg Abbott.