It is insulting to banana republics when we compare them to our nation’s use of the courts to silence and stop Donald Trump.  Banana republics of yore had a shame about it—they did their cloak and dagger work in the dark, as quietly as possible. They didn’t parade and strut the way our judges and prosecutors do as they indict and try Donald Trump at federal and local levels.

No—What we are seeing in the lawfare against Donald Trump to obtain what cannot be won at the ballot box, namely: his defeat—is Putinism. Vladimir Putin struts and parades his use of the apparatuses of government to silence and retribute against his political foes. He has no shame about it. He sees the publicity of it as a tool and message: “Come against me politically—face state-sanctioned punishment.”

Those who denounce Putin, wake up: the rapidity of it all is different here—the ends, and increasingly, the means, are not.