As the FBI raids his home, Trump turns to a familiar playbook to divide America

When I heard that federal agents had raided Donald Trump’s Florida home to search for classified documents he might have taken from the White House illegally, I thought of the many ways that Trump has used division as a weapon in the past. I know that in this, a moment of great difficulty, he will turn to that weapon once again.

It was division, after all, that allowed Trump to separate Americans into camps of “us” and “them.” After a years-long campaign of lies about Barack Obama’s birth certificate, Trump was swept into office by the same wave of widespread resentment that usually follows Black achievement. Whites who’d felt their power slipping away during Obama’s two-term presidency were reassured by Trump’s implicit promise that, by Making America Great Again, he would drag the country back to a time when a Black man wouldn’t dream of seeking power.

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If that meant breaking norms or breaking laws, Trump’s followers were willing to look the other way. So they elected a man who was successfully sued by those who said he’d swindled them through Trump University. Contractors said he’d cheated them. Women said he’d sexually assaulted them. Business owners said he’d ruined them. None of it mattered. Trump’s supporters followed him until his thirst for power led to a deadly insurrection that nearly destroyed democracy in America.

And now, the law is closing in on a former president who on Wednesday invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than answer a New York state prosecutor’s questions about his business practices. While facing the House Select Committee’s ongoing probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the halls of Congress, a state investigation in Georgia, and an FBI raid on his Florida home, Trump has once again divided us.

Trump promised to take America back to a time when it was great, and that meant different things to different people.

The FBI raid was centered on presidential records that Trump removed from the White House when he left last year, according to Trump attorney Christina Bobb. Under federal law, such records are supposed to be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration, the same agency that removed 15 boxes of presidential records from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in January, and alerted the Justice Department to take a closer look.

Given that a federal judge’s approval of a search warrant must be based on probable cause that a crime has been committed and that evidence will likely be found, I believe the FBI knew they’d find what they were seeking. This is especially true in an unprecedented case like this one. After all, no former president has ever had federal agents search his home.

Trump has shattered many norms during his brief time in politics, and he could very well become the first former president to face a criminal prosecution. And, as much as it pleases me to know that he could be held accountable for flouting the law, it is also chilling to know that most of his followers likely will not be swayed, no matter how much evidence against him is presented.

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Trump promised to take America back to a time when it was great, and that meant different things to different people. For me, it meant that he wanted my people to be at the bottom rung of society, with no chance to rise up. For many working-class whites, it meant a return to a time before they felt marginalized, and pushed aside.

In a country like that, where white supremacy reigns, the law is a tool to be used by the powerful in order to subjugate others. And, when the law doesn’t work to maintain that imbalance, those in power will justify breaking the law, changing the law, or violently removing those who would dare to stand in their way.

That’s what makes this such a dangerous time.

If state and federal prosecutors are right, Donald Trump routinely flouted the law while he was president. But to his followers, that doesn’t matter, because the law is not there to protect people. It’s there to protect power.

On Jan. 6, 2021, Trump’s followers showed what they were willing to do if their leader was stripped of power. Now that the FBI looks to be launching a criminal investigation against him, America must prepare for Trump to once again divide us.

We must not allow him to conquer us, as well.