The National Interest  The Democrats Are Making a Terrible Mistake By Jonathan Chait Suppose, in the immediate aftermath of January 6, 2021, you predicted the following events: Disgraced coup plotter Donald Trump would evade impeachment and then prison. He would not only regain control of the Republican Party but deepen his mastery over it, driving his skeptics within the party into retirement or terrified silence. He would win renomination without the slightest drama. The Supreme Court would rule that he is entitled to commit crimes in office. And then he would win a second term virtually unopposed. Only the most addled QAnon cultist would have envisioned such a triumphal rise from ignominy to redemption. But now all but the last item on this list has come to pass, and that, too, is on course to transpire — with severe and possibly long-lasting repercussions for the legitimacy of the party that has taken on the task of preventing Trump’s return. Here is the situation in all its surreality. Joe Biden is the only candidate standing (if we define the term loosely) between Trump and a far more powerful version of the office he previously occupied. Before his shambolic debate with Trump, Biden was already in deep trouble: dragged down by a sub-40 approval rating and trailing in several states he won four years ago, even with the benefit of a saturation-bombing ad campaign in swing states that Trump does not yet (but soon will) have the funding to reciprocate.