If every president is jailed from this point onward, then the only ones who will run are those who think they can stay in power forever - maybe even those who have a plan to stay in power forever. That seems unlikely to work out well...

> "If Trump is jailed, every US President will be from this point onwards."

Maybe America should consider doing that. South Korea has jailed four ex-presidents so far, and will likely continue to do so in the future. Somehow the country is fine. If anything, I think it helps establish the notion that nobody is above the law.

(Not saying everything is great in South Korean politics, of course. Ask any South Korean, and they'll argue to death that half of South Korea is selling out the country. The only difference is which half.)

This sounds like another way of saying that all presidents are above the law and should never be prosecuted, which seems... problematic. If Trump's actions are not worthy of prosecution then what could a president possibly do to get arrested?

> Also, if the Constitution is interpreted in a way which allows persecution of political opponents, then the Constitution in more trouble than Trump is.

If it allowed prosecution of people for being political opponents, sure, but that’s not the issue. (And its interesting that almost everyone making this case has, both before and even after making it, argued for the prosecution of their political opponents.)

OTOH, allowing political opposition to be a “get out of insurrection free” card, is an obvious existential risk.

> Nick Land puts it well: “If Trump is jailed, every US President will be from this point onwards.”

Even if I agreed that was true (which I don’t), it would be a lesser problem than “if an attempted autocoup is unpunished for Trump, the next US President elected freely will be the last.”