Trump's thirst for political vengeance gives Democrats a path to do the same | Opinion

Donald Trump promised vengeance to his supporters on the reelection campaign trail, and now the president is delivering.

Between weaponizing the Federal Communications Commission to go after talk show hosts and bringing thin prosecutions against those who have wronged him, Trump is charging ahead with wielding the power of government against his political foes. 

It would appear that Trump is willing to continue the cycle of abuse that he claims Democrats started because he won’t be around to face the consequences. He also won't be around to see if Democrats weaponize government the same way. But the Republican Party will, and that should worry GOP politicians enough to start pulling back on some of this before Democrats regain power and ramp up their revenge efforts.

Trump adds fuel to the fire, rather than putting it out

So far, Trump has turned the FCC into a weapon against late-night TV hosts. Again, I thought that Jimmy Kimmel’s comments about conservative activist Charlie Kirk were objectionable, but that is not a problem for the government to address. Doing so only makes it more likely that the next Democratic administration goes after Fox News hosts for their definition of objectionable remarks one day. 

In the case of the FCC’s threats against Kimmel, a truly conservative administration would be looking at ways to limit the agency's power, or ideally, dismantle it altogether. The only way to ensure the weapons of the government aren’t used against you in the future is to disarm them altogether. 

This is happening alongside Trump's effort to wield the Department of Justice, such as the prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey. Here is where we need both sides to agree to play nice, because Trump has some reason to be upset because of years of abuse of the legal system against him. 

The very Democrats who spent years praising the malicious targeting of Trump are now suddenly up in arms against him giving them a taste of their own medicine.

But the Democrats' lawfare against Trump doesn’t give any justification for Trump doing it, short of “revenge feels good.” That argument wasn’t valid on the playground, nor is it now.

De-escalation from the Republicans might not dissuade Democrats from doing so in the future, but Trump’s indictment against Comey and potentially others is certain to worsen the problem. The Republican Party is entirely complicit in not denouncing Trump's actions, regardless of "who started it."

Trump doesn't care about actually solving the problem

The Trump administration doesn’t actually care about any of the consequences of its actions. He and his allies are only interested in the vengeance that Trump wants and are willing to use all the tools at their disposal in order to accomplish that.

If Trump truly cared about the threat of Democrats weaponizing the legal system against their enemies, you'd think that he and Republicans would be the ones to stop the destructive cycle.

But clearly, he doesn't care about any of that, at least not more than he cares about getting revenge against people who once wronged him. Trump's lust for revenge clearly supersedes any legitimate policy point.

Elected Republicans may care about such destruction privately, but not enough so to grow a spine and publicly stand against Trump's actions. There is hope that Democrats will eventually be the ones to stop the revenge spiral, though I doubt it.

I fear ultimately we'll see that fighting fire with fire will only result in the Constitution being burned to a crisp.

Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.