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I suspect that a lot of Democrats, especially those amongst the upper leadership, are succumbing to the same sort of mindset that @the_nybbler does in this thread here They believe in their heart of hearts that credibility is imposed by the elite, and that if they are able to successfully indict and convict Trump that his supporters will be forced to shut up and back down. The possibility that Trump's supporters might reject the legitimacy of the charges is dismissed out of hand because that would imply that their model of authority and credibility as things that are imposed by the elite rather than emergent properties is incorrect. And if a fundamental tenet of liberalism can be negated that easily what does that say about the rest of the the democratic party platform?
They're right that credibility is imposed by the elite; all the right-thinking people already believe Trump is guilty, and they hold power and don't care what the "deplorables" believe because after all, what can the "deplorables" do about it even if they do "reject the legitimacy of the charges"? But the right's threshold for violence is not impossibly high, as January 6 proved (for a small, not too bright, segment of hotheads), and aside from just having Trump shot out of hand, I don't see much more likely to trigger it than a political prosecution.
(I also think if the right does try anything, they'll be crushed, but that leaves the republic still broken)
How can "the republic be broken" if credibility is imposed by the elite?
Either credibility is an emergent property or it is not.
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