Love him or hate him, one singular accomplishment of President Donald John Trump was to expose the lengths the entrenched power structure would go to maintain that power. His successes and popularity despite continued obstruction forced the leftists’ hand. After two unsuccessful attempts to impeach, convict, and remove him, the Democrats were forced to “fortify” the 2020 elections.

Although they mewl constantly about “democracy,” when the vox populi resisted their gaslighting and protested the blatant disregard of their votes, that same entrenched power of the Federal government slapped them down…and hard. That brings us to the subject of this missive.

My Red State colleague Leslie McAdoo Gordon has a stellar piece out today about the disparate treatment of many, if not most of the protestors who attended President Trump’s rally on January 6th. She writes:

Observers have recently commented that the January 6 criminal cases are being treated differently from other cases, often, referring to criminal cases arising from Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and/or Antifa riots. The difficulty in making that comparison is that those cases are often not similar to the January 6 cases in ways that the law considers relevant to the question of equal treatment.

However, the claim of unequal treatment is, in fact, legitimate. A comparison of the January 6 cases to other federal cases involving the same kind of conduct demonstrates that the January 6 cases are being treated significantly more harshly by DOJ and the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office.

My colleague goes on to walk the reader through the tradition of protest in these United States and how protest in our Nation’s capital is specially protected and given wider latitude than in other places. Misdemeanor trespass (which is the charge for the vast majority of the January 6th “rioters,”) is usually dealt with via a $50.00 bond/fine and no court appearance or conviction. However, in the case of the evil Trump supporters, the Department of Justice is literally putting them through the wringer.

Her analysis is right up there quality-wise with that other notable RedState jurist, Shipwreckedcrew. You can read the whole thing here.

For our purposes here today, this is the money quote from Ms. McAdoo Gordon’s article:

Thus, each January 6 defendant faces multiple court appearances in D.C. federal court, where a lawyer is a necessity, and the result will be a criminal conviction on his or her record unless the defendant goes to trial and secures an acquittal. In the event of a conviction, the defendant faces jail time or probation or both, and there is no possibility of ever sealing or expunging the case. The process is expensive, time-consuming, and nerve-racking.

Note the huge difference. Leftist demonstrators, some even violent, get a $50.00 slap on the wrist and most importantly, NO criminal conviction on their records. Those who dare to support a vulgarian President and protest the obvious theft of an election, even if not convicted, will still suffer the full power of the Federal Government. While not only having to pay their own lawyers by the billable hour, these victims of government abuse also get the privilege of paying taxes to fund the outsized salaries of the corrupt government attorneys harassing them.

Once merely a tool to pressure real criminals that have committed real crimes, the left has discovered that “lawfare” can be used to modify behavior and/or punish their enemies. There is the case of a Christian baker who refused to bake a cake specifically celebrating a same-sex “marriage,” which violated his religious beliefs. His case went all the way to the Supreme court, where he won after much personal angst and severe depletion of his family’s net worth. That didn’t deter the left. They have again gone after him on the “trans-gender” front. Their objective is to either get his willing compliance or run him out of business.

This same technique was used against LTG Michael Flynn, one-time National Security Advisor to President Trump. When corrupt elements inside the DOJ couldn’t get dirt on President Trump, they attempted to coerce such information from Flynn. LTG Flynn was forced to admit to a (non) crime that he didn’t really commit, in order to protect his son from harassment and to avoid putting his family into penury. Only the highly public nature of the case and the timely arrival of a decent attorney to represent him put a stop to that effort. Even then an obviously corrupt judge refused to accept the DOJ finally dropping the charges when their malfeasance was finally exposed.

At first glance, we could say that in the cases of the Christian baker and LTG Flynn the “forces of good, defeated evil.” But what about those of us regular folk? What about those of us who aren’t famous, like General Flynn or Donald Trump, who is undergoing his own personal victimization at the hands of the NY Attorney General? Not all of us have the financial means to defend ourselves. Not all of us will be lucky enough to have our case get national attention, like the Christian baker, and get some legal assistance.

Even those on our team who have managed to find financial help via GoFundMe have had that avenue cut off as the leftists who run that organization determined that conservatives were evil and not eligible for their services.

So, back to the vast majority of January 6th protestors who didn’t sit in Pelosi’s chair or try to walk off with her podium. You know, those folks who were invited in by the Capitol Police and took selfies with those same police officers as they leisurely strolled through Statuary Hall—making sure to remain within the velvet guide ropes? Those folks? Even if they walk away with only a misdemeanor conviction—or no conviction at all, the left will have won that round. By dragging them through the Federal justice system, draining their net worth, browbeating them, and scaring the hell out of them, the left will have ensured that for the most part, very few of these folks will ever show overt, albeit peaceful resistance to even the most obvious corruption by leftist DC elites.

Bottom line? No conviction is necessary. The process has indeed become the punishment.