Calling Donald Trump a threat to the rule of law has backfired

As Mr Trump acquires the Republican presidential nomination for a third time, these political and legal aspirations are disintegrating. Prosecuting Mr Trump boosted him politically. It rallied Republicans to him in the primaries and, perversely, helped him redirect the very charge that he threatened democracy to Mr Biden by falsely claiming the president was “weaponising” the Department of Justice. And, as of this month, prosecuting Mr Trump has resulted in a new constitutional standard that presidents can, in fact, forever be uniquely beyond the reach of the law. The political and legal consequences are converging to probably make Mr Trump—now the victim of that most antidemocratic of acts, an attempted assassination—the first president to begin a term with this new understanding of unassailable executive power.