It is helpful to think of political developments as moves on the chessboard made to advance an objective. In chess, the objective is to win the game, chess being zero-sum. Politics is like that, too, though participants often claim it's not, that they're acting for the greater good, principles at the foundation of democracy, motherhood and apple pie and all that — which is true in some cases but never if Democrats are in the game.
This brings me to Attorney General Garland's claim that the Mar-a-Lago home invasion wasn't a raid at all. It was perfectly legal because, you see, nobody is above the law. If the A.G. meant this literally — maybe he didn't — he was way off the mark. Quite a few of his fellow Democrats consider themselves above the law and have for a while. Everybody knows who they are (long list), what they did, and that they got away with it.
So this particular Democrat move on the chessboard was designed to accomplish...what, exactly? Here are some scenarios:
The Mar-a-Lago raid was an admission that the J6 inquisition failed to unearth evidence that could be used to attach legal blame to President Trump for what transpired. Yes indeed, they tried awfully hard, and quite a few innocent people got snared in that net, but once again, The Donald walked away unharmed. So the DNC had to undertake a new fishing expedition. How this one will turn out remains to be seen. I doubt it will go anywhere.
It's not a coincidence that the Mar-a-Lago home invasion occurred just after a CPAC straw poll showed that President Trump is the GOP's overwhelming favorite for 2024, with Florida governor Ron DeSantis a distant second. The numbers were 69% for Trump and 24% for DeSantis. So the point of the raid was to pour cold water on Trump's status as the GOP frontrunner in 2024. I'm going to take a wild guess and say this won't slow DJT's momentum.
Piling on does get old after a while, and, because we're all human, it can be tempting to start wondering at a certain point if it's worth the bother. President Trump has had to put up with the Russia hoax, the impeachment charade, a New York tax probe...all phony, to be sure, but it's enough to drive a man to drink. Fortunately, President Trump does not drink. So the raid was carried out to see if he will buckle and call it quits. This won't work, either.
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, I will note that quite a few in the GOP prefer that President Trump not run in 2024. Their reasons are not the same, of course, but we don't need to go into them to find out if there's any merit to those reasons. Nor does it matter much who those folks are. The CPAC straw poll should have convinced them to knock it off and get in line. So the raid was designed to create a split in the GOP. Will it work?
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy thought the raid was just politics (duh) and warned that the DOJ will be investigated if he becomes speaker. I doubt that the A.G. is now hiding under a desk. As for Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, he woke up and called for an immediate and thorough explanation (duh). So the raid should convince the GOP that the two Macs must not be in charge if the red wave materializes in November. That split would be a win for us all.
