Last night former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was raided by the FBI. Details are still unclear, but the purported reason for the raid was to search for classified documents supposedly stored at the estate.

This raid is just the latest in ongoing attempts to bring down Trump, attempts that began almost the minute he took office in 2016. From RussiaGate to multiple impeachments to the January 6th hearings, the Left, in alliance with the Deep State, has done everything it can to push Trump out of the way, preferably all the way to jail. Trump Derangement Syndrome has reached pandemic levels.

One cannot help but feel that this raid, however, represents a new and dangerous phase in our American experiment. It’s generally been understood that former Presidents are untouchable. Most of them likely have significant skeletons in their closet (can we say Jeffrey Epstein?), but Americans have an unspoken agreement that going after former Presidents, especially former Presidents of the opposing party of the current Administration, will end badly.

Of course, President Trump isn’t just any former president. He’s also the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination. And that’s why the Left can’t give him up. It is desperate to sideline him any way it can. This raid is an obvious attempt to do that; here’s U.S. Code § 2071 (emphasis added):

(b): Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.

The Number 1 goal for the Left is to disqualify Trump from running in 2024, and this goal has become an obsession, reaching insane heights. What the Left can’t seem to recognize is that their unrelenting attacks on Trump only make him more popular with his base, and even make him more popular with those who aren’t enthusiastic about him, but also don’t want to see governmental power used to frustrate the democratic process.

That’s the irony of Trump Derangement Syndrome: it attracts people to Trump. I’ve never been a big fan of Trump, as a person or as a president. However, the viciousness in which his enemies—who are often the enemies of my vision for America—attack him suggest that he has a greater ability to bring them down than I thought.

Personally, I don’t want Trump to run in 2024. But if he ends up being in jail in 2024, I guarantee I will vote for him, even if I have to write his name on the ballot. I may not be enthusiastic about Trump, but I’m far less enthusiastic about living in a banana republic.