Quick take: If only Republicans had dumped Trump

 Joe Biden's classified document debacle just keeps getting worse.  Over the weekend, the FBI searched his home, and found more classified documents.  They did not need a search warrant because Biden did not spend a year trying to withhold documents nor block their access.  Now consider that comparison, because it cuts both ways.  I am not the only one arguing that Biden's document scandal-- and yes, it counts as a scandal-- ensures that Donald Trump escapes any legal punishment for the Mar-a-Lago Papers.  Yes, what Trump did was far worse along every dimension, but no Republican juror will ever vote to convict Trump when there is a Biden document scandal, even if the cases are not comparable.  The Biden case just needs to exist.  Now, look at this from another direction.  It is only because what Trump did was so much worse that Biden looks comparatively innocent.  Take away Trump, and Biden would look so much worse right now.

So what would have happened if Republicans had responded to January 6 differently?  Or even the Mar-a-Lago Papers?  They have had opportunities to dump his loser ass, and try to signal to the base that no, really, he sucks.  They could have done so at multiple points after the 2020 election.  Yet, it is a classic collective action problem, by Mancur Olson's definition.  If they all worked together to signal to the base that Trump is actually a problem, the game would be over, but too few have the courage of Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger.  Yet if they did-- if they had purged Trump from the party, particularly on the Mar-a-Lago Papers, they could now take down Biden, and do so with moral standing.

But with Trump's much worse document scandal still working its way through the legal system, they can't.  The obvious story is that Trump gets away with it because of Biden, but the less obvious observation is that Biden gets away with it because Republicans are letting Trump get away with it.

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