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I think there is some deeply cynical logic, or a horrifying game of chicken, being played by Democratic leaders here.
Let's say Jack Smith is given the go-ahead to investigate and prosecute Trump as fast as he possibly could (while building a bullet-proof case for conviction). With all the legal resources (not to mention Republican-friendly judges) available for Trump to leverage, it's safe to say that Smith certainly would not have been able to complete a full trial and secure a conviction before the 2024 election. But perhaps one could have been under-way.
A Trump trial for election interference in the middle of 2024 would have been a galvanizing force for his base, and likely cause his popularity among like-minded folks to surge and likely help his polling numbers. After all, conservatives love their persecution complexes and already live in a hazy fantasy world where their guy can do no wrong. So this doesn't help Democrats.
If Trump were to be acquitted, this would obviously be credibility kryptonite for Democrats, so that's a bad outcome. And if Trump were to be convicted, I believe there is genuine concern among top Democrats that all the armed crazies (including those in the police, government positions and military) might do a real insurrection this time as opposed to the world's shittiest flash mob.
So what's a cynical Democratic operator to do? Have Smith slow-walk the investigation and take his time to make it immaculate. Have the election without using litigation to get in Trump's way and hope that people don't make a shitty choice. If they do, they'll get what they paid for: another four years of ridiculous chaos. These would represent setbacks and lost ground for Democratic causes, but their patrons will figure out how to make it profitable in the meantime and be there to fund a comeback when the American people become exhausted by the bullshit. Let him burn himself out in the spotlight, further expose himself as a corrupt fool, letting his support curdle naturally rather than fighting him and his supporters at their strongest.
This scenario presumes several deeply horrifying and risky ideas:
No one who matters will get hurt in the next four years. Are you rich? Are you a middle-class cis-het-white person? Do you not live in Palestine, Ukraine or Taiwan? You'll ride this out. The poor and the queers have nowhere else to turn, so they'll eat shit and be right back on the Democrat's side next time around (unless they have money, of course).
Trump and his cronies will be too inept to dismantle American democracy before the next election.
I'm no card player, but this all seems like a terrible gamble to me.
Or, do the right thing and prosecute him, even if it's bad for them politically.
Now it's terrible for them politically and terrible for the country and the world.
The first half here doesn't really track because Trump's numbers didn't really change. He had a similar amount of voters as usual, and the Democrats came up short. I don't think there could have been a substantial boost for him, his people are solid regardless of whatever he says or goes through.
The second half, yeah that makes sense, but now we see happens when Democrats "play by the rules" or try to play it safe... They lose. It's less about trump and more that they didn't capture voters. We needed Kamala to distance herself from Biden but she wanted to be "nice". People are struggling, no one feels the economy is great, they left progressives behind, and here we are now. Even if progressives are only 10-20% of the party, you NEED them to win
I've had similar thoughts myself.
Basically, you can't use a legal process to dispose of someone that the voting public want to be president.
Only because we apparently hold politicians to no real standards. Incoming rapists alert, but hey who really cares because there is no law against it and convictions are hard to come by. I mean at this point Aotus probably won't consider you unless you are a confirmed rapist. Birds of a feather.
Y'all think there's a lot more order to the world than there really is. Really it's just a simple combination of people not wanting to step in front of the moving train, and those that do didn't have the power to stop it. People like Merrick Garland and Robert Mueller are likely the most responsible without being complicit. They refused to be leaders. They were trying as hard as they could to downplay current events and keep some odd kind of status quo.
I understand that they wanted the government of the United States to seem stable and democratic. They wanted stay out of everything as hard as they could, and they failed to do their jobs in the process.
Most everyone else did what they felt they could do without destabilizing the government and while respecting the vote of the people. It's unclear if things go better or worse for the country if Biden takes drastic action. It's really hard to say "just this one time" to removing the president-elect from his office. Though I think a Vance presidency would have been better for all involved.
It's not some grand conspiracy. It's mostly a failure of the American public.