Dear, dear Leftist Friends, remember: There are no principles. Only situations. And if you believe that the situations are only going to be the ones that pit good Democrats against wicked Republicans…you haven’t read nearly enough history.

Scenario #1:

The righteous, totally noble, completely non-corrupt, and un-self-interested Democrats succeed in indicting Donald Trump and sending him to the hoosegow.  Hurrah! Problem solved.

Except that the Republican base, now really fired up, elects a Republican — say,  Ron DeSantis — as president.

What will that Republican president do?

Remember back in 2015, when attendants at Trump’s rallies would chant “Lock Her Up” about Hillary, and the mainstream media fretted that Trump would, if elected, actually do it? That is, that he would weaponize the law enforcement resources of the Federal Government against his political rivals?

As it turned out, he never did this—The Donald never sent van-loads of FBI agents to Chappaqua to toss the belongings of Hill and Bill. He was, it seems, constrained by the Constitution and by the precedent that has held in the United States for over two centuries regarding the treatment of political adversaries, especially former presidents and their (im)moral myrmidons. Imagine!

That precedent ensured that, no matter how bitter the campaign, or even what dodgy or corrupt behavior the preceding president and his minions were suspected of, they would be left unmolested after leaving office.  In order to ensure a peaceful transition, speeches would instead be made about “moving on” and “looking to the future.”

Well, no longer! There are no principles. Only situations.

And so, on the first day of President DeSantis’ first term, look for buses filled with FBI agents to roll into the driveway of the Biden’s house in Delaware, while the IRS—those 87,000 brand new agents!—takes a look-see into the Biden family finances.

Oh, and since Hilary Clinton’s possible crimes (That’s what FBI Director Comey admitted they were, by the way) are still within the statute of limitations, the DOJ will send agents belatedly to Chappaqua too. Who knows what they’ll find, if they just start opening drawers and breaking into safes? Since it’s extraordinarily unlikely that the Secretary of State could’ve had an unauthorized and non-secured server without her boss, the president, knowing about it,  the Obamas, too, can look forward to having armed federal agents dispatched to any one (or, what the heck, all three!) of their mansions.

Scenario #2:

The machinations of the elderly but still surprisingly spry leadership of the Democratic Party succeeds in completely crushing not just Trump but the whole Republican party.  The Orange Monster is wearing an orange jumpsuit, his 77 million Deplorables have been squashed, their fields salted, the air ringing with the lamentations of their women.  The dreams of Bette Midler and Don Lemon have come true.

The next president (and the next and the next) will be Democrats. (Planet saved!)

There art thou happy?

Or …not so much?

As I write this, uber-leftists are indignantly Tweeting that the Build-Back-A-Little-Less-Better bill that passed last week was completely inadequate since it contained no provision for actually ending capitalism. They’re furious.

We human beings are an indignant, fury-prone, competitive, and fractious bunch. External enemies tend to unite us (hence the constant drumbeat TrumpTrumpTrump from the Democratic party, and hence —this week—-the increased unity among Republicans apres Mar-A-Lago).

Remove the external threat, and frictions inevitably erupt within the tribe. These often prove at least as lethally divisive.

Let’s take the obvious:  The Democratic Party, having purged itself of actual moderates, is now divided between the far left, the far, far left, and the far, far-far (Antifa) left.

The far far left — the Democratic-Socialist-Bernie-Bro faction — is at odds with the Supposedly-Moderate, far-left, Hillary-ite establishment.

Who remembers what happened in 2015? The Bernie Bros do.

Bernie wuz robbed.

Bernie should’ve gotten the nomination, but Team Hillary maneuvered him out of first place. Lucky for Hillary, Bernie is essentially an establishment guy who (really) only talks the talk. And besides, there was TrumpTrumpTrump to consider.

Fast forward to 2023. No more Trump to Trumpet about, and when the Dems finally admit that Ol’ Joe is doo-lally, Hillary hears America calling, begging her to bring her youthful vim, experience and that trademark mod-Dem unifying normalcy to the White House.

Democratic Socialist true believers, not inclined to embrace four more years of Botoxed ersatz leftism and still yearning for the real deal,  field a primary candidate, one younger, browner, female-er and much more charismatic (not that this is difficult). AOC from the DSA naively threatens not only to get rid of all the farting cows but also to sic those 87,000 IRS agents on the actual rich. This is a popular campaign promise. AOC is looking pretty good in the polls, and even manages to win a few early state primaries.

Yeah, well: Not to worry. Team Hillary “wins” the election. Of course, she does.

What does the New York Times do with AOC’s outraged claims of election irregularities now that everyone knows that an election won by an establishment Democrat is free, fair, and squeaky-clean by definition? How will it regard the street protests when these erupt (as they will?) at Hillary’s inauguration?

Will the presence of some far-far-far left ANTIFA protesters among the street protesters be tactfully overlooked…or this time, will the smashed-in Starbucks windows and Molotov cocktails be highlighted, analyzed, outed as indicators of the real intentions of AOC and the not-so-mostly-peaceful character of her opposition to Hillary?

What would prevent the new president from using the power of the federal government to go after AOC and other political rivals within the left with as much ferocity as was deployed against Trump? What (other than the high moral character of Hillary herself, of course)  prevents the DSA from being subjected to electronic surveillance on the basis of a secret FISA Court warrant, censorship by the multi-billionaires of Twitter, Google, and Facebook, an attorney general who simply refuses to enforce laws against harassing and threatening DSA-friendly judges and justices at their homes, dawn raids by armed G-men, or the conjuring of an unanswerable charge of long-ago sexual assault while professional feminists dutifully chant Believe All Women?

It is worth recalling that, having taken power, Hitler’s first victims were other German gentiles—first the Communists and the social democrats but soon enough,  other Nazis. Remember the Night of the Long Knives? Hitler eliminated 200 members of his own party—people who thought of themselves as loyal friends of the regime. And of course, the same thing happened, again and again,  in God knows how many of Stalin’s Commie-on-Commie purges.

Never imagine that you and yours have a permanent place on the Right Side of History…