Politics has high enough stakes without the losers being sent to prison — or losing their heads.
Jailing opponents or condemning them to death is what dictatorships do, not democracies.
But times are changing, rapidly, and democracy isn't what it used to be, thanks to a vengeful spirit that's taken hold from Brazil to South Korea, and we've had a taste of it as well.
As Americans think about what's in store for the next two years after a new Congress is sworn in next January, with the 2028 presidential election now on the horizon, we should take heed of just how far "lawfare" is going in other parts of the world.
In Seoul, former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has literally been on trial for his life.
Prosecutors last week renewed demands that Yoon be put to death for his attempt to impose martial law in late 2024.
Prosperous as South Korea is, its democracy is still young, less than 40 years old, and three of the country's last five presidents have wound up being sent to prison.
But prosecutors are not satisfied with the life sentence (and additional time) already imposed on Yoon — they want him dead, despite the farcical nature of his attempt at martial law, which lasted barely six hours.
Donald Trump's critics have at times invoked South Korea as a precedent for how they would like him to be treated.
The idea is sheer madness, not only because of the differences between Trump and South Korea's imprisoned presidents but even more importantly because the South Korean example illustrates how escalatory these episodes can be.
The threat of winding up in prison, like some of his predecessors, only made Yoon more determined to stay in office at any cost.
Killing him risks making the next leader who fears for his life as well as his freedom even more desperate to survive by whatever means he can muster.
This was the predicament Julius Caesar found himself in 2,000 years ago.
His political enemies were waiting for his military command outside Rome to expire, so when he returned to the city they could prosecute him.
Caesar didn't give them the chance — instead he took his army with him to Rome, and that was the beginning of the final chapter for the republic.
The end had been a long time coming, in truth: prosecutions had become so politically weaponized that practically every Roman leader was vulnerable and had to fear for his own safety.
Even the great champion of liberty Cicero, a man who was morally Caesar's opposite, was accused of breaking the law and putting Roman citizens to death without due process in the course of stopping a conspiracy against the republic.
The law was a weapon that could be used against the just as well as the unjust.
"Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime," was reputed to be the motto of Josef Stalin's secret-policy chief, Lavrentiy Beria.
If prosecutors are ambitious enough, they can find a law under which to charge anyone.
That's as true in democracies where the law has become politicized as it is in openly authoritarian states — and this abuse of prosecutorial power is one thing that marks the turn from freedom to tyranny.
Flavio Bolsonaro, the conservative candidate who lost Brazil's recent second-round election, was warned he wouldn't remain a free man with his rival, the leftist incumbent President Lula da Silva, reconfirmed in power — so when the police demanded Bolsonaro hand over his passports shortly after the election, he took no chances: he fled into exile here in America.
Poland in recent days has provided a fresh warning to the world of what happens when law ceases to be seen as protecting everyone in politics equally.
Police took over the country's Constitutional Tribunal as part of Prime Minister Donald Tusk's campaign to purge government institutions of holdovers from the previous administration.
Poland's president — who is one of those holdovers — showed up to protest the police action.
Tusk and his right-wing opponents each claim the other side is corrupt, and the opposition says they are being subjected to legal abuse and intimidation: in effect, outlawed for their anti-European Union — and anti-Tusk — politics.
When Donald Trump was put before America's voters after years of legal battles, the people acquitted him, making him president once more, and in effect canceling most of the setbacks he'd suffered in court.
That was the American people's verdict on lawfare: they would not stand for it.
The next Congress, and eventually the next president, should remember that — Americans do not want our democracy to become like Brazil's, South Korea's, or Poland's or our republic to end like Rome's.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Previously:
• 10/28/26: Can Brazil and Venezuela Tolerate Opposition?
• 10/22/26: Why George Washington Would Deport Mahmoud Khalil
• 10/06/26: Latin America's Many Trumps
• 09/30/26: MAID in America?
• 09/22/26: Sore Losers Are Socialism's Allies
• 09/15/26: The Immigration Politics of a Felon's Pardon
• 09/14/26: Jobs and Manufacturing Are on the Ballot
• 09/01/26: How to Tackle Domestic Extremists' Foreign Enablers
• 08/25/26: Why Hasan Piker Mocks a Murdered Man
• 08/18/26: Dems' Southern Strategy
• 08/11/26: Homebuyers Deserve the Facts About Crime and Schools
• 08/04/26: Diversity, Equity, and Confabulation
• 07/28/26: Democratic Socialists of America vs. John Adams
• 07/21/26: Why Dems Can't Do Better Than Kamala Harris in 2028
• 07/14/26: Prescription for a Socialist Workforce
• 07/07/26: The Smithsonian's Patriotism Problem
• 06/30/26: Bill Maher, Liberalism's Apostate
• 06/23/26: Can Anyone Govern Britain -- or America?
• 06/16/26: University Professors Against Academic Freedom
• 06/09/26: Pope Leo Courts the Global Left
• 06/02/26: A Mass-Graves Myth Is Media Malpractice
• 05/28/26: Dems Face Midterm Disappointment
• 05/26/26: Dems Face Midterm Disappointment
• 05/12/26: Dems finally come clean 'bout their radical design
• 05/05/26: The Silenced Generation
• 04/28/26:Colleges Are Making Political Violence Worse
• 04/21/26:Immigration Amnesty by Any Other Name
• 04/14/26: A New Extreme in Gerrymandering
• 04/07/26: A New Extreme in Gerrymandering
• 03/17/26: Why Are Senate Dems Making Air Travel Worse?
• 03/10/26: Cuba Should Accept Trump's 'Friendly Takeover'
• 03/03/26: Immigration Enforcement Saves Lives
• 02/24/26: How a Party Offends Its Voters
• 02/17/26: Why Are Anti-ICE Activists Building Borders?
• 02/10/26: A Japanese Lesson for Troubled Britain
• 02/03/26: The Trump Coalition Wins But the GOP Brand Doesn't
• 01/27/26: Canada Should Warm to Trump's Arctic Plans
• 01/20/26: From Rock to Tech, Talent Flees Taxes
• 01/13/26: Woman Who Weaponized Car Against I.C.E Endangered Her Life -- and Yours
• 01/06/26: Tim Walz Personifies Dems' Decline
• 12/30/25: Harvard Says Yes to Discrimination, No to Western Civ
• 12/23/25: JD Vance Gets America's Creed and Heritage Right
• 12/16/25: Trump's Inflation Trap
• 12/09/25: Biden's Immigration Debacle Is the Media's, Too
• 12/02/25: 'Iryna's Law' and the Bad Judges Who Make It Necessary
• 11/26/25: Marjorie Taylor Greene's Exit Is a Warning to Republicans
• 11/19/25: Trump Hasn't Lost Hispanics (Yet)
• 11/11/25: Trump's Tariffs on Trial
• 10/28/25: MAGA Makes Allies Great Again
• 10/21/25: How To Make the AmericaS Great Again
• 10/16/25: Columbus Day Celebrates Our Civilization
• 10/09/25: Why Sharpies Are Made in America Again
• 09/30/25: Assata Shakur and Other Parents of Political Violence
• 09/09/25: Who's Accountable for Autopen Pardons?
• 09/02/25: Gender dysphoria is a mental-illness, NOT an all-encompassing delusion
• 08/26/25: Trump's Industrial Policy Is Realism, Not Socialism
• 08/19/25: Is Gavin Newsom the Dems' Answer to Trump?
• 08/12/25: Just Say No to More Marijuana
• 08/05/25: Will the GOP Make Libs Generous Again?
• 07/30/25: Trump's Trade Lesson for Economists (and the World)
• 07/22/25: Whose Politics Canceled Stephen Colbert?
• 07/08/25: A Big Beautiful Test of GOP Principles and Discipline
• 07/01/25: Dems Need Populism, But Not Zohran's Sort
• 06/25/25: Secure Borders Win Wars Like This One
• 06/18/25: WEIRD Protesters Should Stay Home
• 06/17/25: WEIRD Protesters Should Stay Home
• 06/04/25: State that's long eluded GOP turns toward Trump
• 05/21/24: Trump's Sun Belt Hopes and Rust Belt Needs
• 05/14/24: What Trump Sees in Doug Burgum
• 05/07/24: The Vietnam Era Never Ended for Biden's Party
• 05/06/24: Nationalists of the World, Unite?
• 04/25/24: Foreign Policy Splits
• 04/16/24: How pro-lifers stand to lose everything gained in overturning Roe
• 04/02/24: PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr.
• 04/02/24: Who Wants to Be House Speaker?
• 03/26/24: Trump Hunts for a VP Close to Home
• 03/19/24: Princess Kate and Democracy's Discontents
• 03/12/24: Can Biden Buy the Voters?
• 03/05/24: Veepstakes Give Trump an Edge
• 02/20/24: Do Americans Trust Either Party?
• 02/13/24: Vladimir Putin -- A Passive Aggressor
• 01/23/24: Will 'Lawfare' Take Trump Off the Ballot?
• 01/16/24: Will Africa Save America?
• 01/09/24:'The Sopranos' at 25: A new world tragedy
• 01/02/24: Trump, Biden and a Fight for the Heart
• 12/12/23: What Happened to Ron DeSantis?
• 12/12/23: Biden Looks Doomed -- But Is He?
• 12/05/23: A Test for Trump and His Rivals
• 11/21/23: When Inequality Is Fatal for Men
• 11/14/23: Nevermind, The Battle's Over
• 11/07/23: War in the Dem Party -- and at the Opera
• 10/24/23: Israel's Lesson for 2024: A Lib Crackup
• 10/17/23: Libs' Dilemma: Immigration or Israel?
• 10/10/23: Why Bidenflation Defines Bidenomics
• 10/03/23: Will Gavin Newsom Copy Trump?
• 09/26/23: Biden's a Loser -- but Dems Can't Ditch Him
• 09/19/23: Do Sex Scandals Matter?
• 09/12/23: Cornel West Spells Doom for Biden
• 09/05/23: What Trump Does for Democracy
• 08/2/23: Ramaswamy: A Trump Versus Trump?
• 08/22/23: Take 'Rich Men North of Richmond' Seriously
• 08/16/23: How America Kills Its Own
• 08/08/23: The Biden Pardon That Can Spare America
• 08/01/23: Harding, a consevative for the ages
• 07/25/23: Demography Destiny, for Us and China
• 07/18/23: The Frontrunner Who Looks Like a Loser Is Biden
• 07/11/23: Britain's Bad Example for American Conservatives
• 07/05/23: Could We Still Win a Revolutionary War?
• 06/27/23: Civilizations Clash -- in Ukraine and at Home
• 06/20/23: China Comes for the Caribbean
• 06/13/23: Fertility, Family and Bio-Socialism
• 06/06/23: From American Dream to Orwell's Nightmare
• 05/23/23: Ukraine war is an existential struggle --- for the West
• 05/23/23: Learn the Right Midterm Lessons -- or Lose in 2024
• 05/16/23: Feinstein Today Is Biden Tomorrow
• 05/09/23: Trump, DeSantis and Political Courtship
• 05/02/23: RFK Jr.'s Threat to Biden
• 04/25/23: Biden's Lost Generation
• 04/25/23: Who's In Charge of Clarence Thomas?
• 04/11/23: Beyond AI, Our Cyborg Future
• 04/04/23: 2024: 3 Leaders, 1 Way to Win
• 03/28/23: Climate Science Makes a Bad Religion
• 03/21/23: All the Conspiracy That's Fit to Print