There is, if one takes a charitable view, a sort of old-fashioned frontier spirit in Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of former President Donald Trump. The Manhattan district attorney’s gross overreach has pushed the nation into previously unmapped territory. Sadly, it may be an “undiscovered country from whose bourn no functioning republic returns,” as the great political commentator, Prince Hamlet, might have warned us.

By removing restraints against political prosecution, Bragg has elevated the rule of petty potentates over the rule of law. This can do nothing but harm. There are still three more cases pending against Trump, the nature, timing, and conduct of which, in various degrees, have already revealed deceitful political calculation that fair-minded voters can see. Whether those voters punish or reward Trump remains to be seen. But either way, efforts by one party to inconvenience rival politicians with jail time can be expected again. It would be a miracle if that were not to happen, for what goes around comes around.