When Watergate blew up and Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974, the U.S. dodged a bullet.  Because honorable Republicans like Howard Baker and Elliot Richardson put country above party, Nixon saw the light, and the U.S. was spared the trauma of almost certain impeachment by the full House and conviction by the Senate.  A presidency ended unnaturally without the institution of the presidency suffering damage.

Had Nixon hung tough and taken his chances in the dock, no one could have predicted the domestic and international consequences of an American administration paralyzed, adrift, and leaderless.  The only certainty: Our adversaries would seize the moment to challenge us.

Almost forty-five years later, bitter and dishonorable people are waging a campaign to remove, by any means necessary, a president not credibly accused of anything warranting impeachment.  Mueller, the Grand Inquisitor, is hip deep in garbage, hoping to find something nasty and smelly to take down his target.  If honorable Democrats exist, none (as far as I know) has stepped up and said, "Wait.  Are we sure it's in the country's best interest to cheer Mueller on and hope he finds a reason to decapitate the administration?"

Unlike the principals in Watergate who calmed the country, the cabal working to prosecute and delegitimize Trump appears unconcerned by the poison it's injected into the body politic.  Its members are oblivious to the damage being done to our institutions as they wage their jihad.  Or maybe Trump-hatred is so blinding that they don't care about setting a dangerous precedent for opposition to future administrations. 

In the here and now, the danger is real.  Trump's ankle-biters seem unaware the world is watching the circus in Washington.  Bad actors like Iran, Russia, and China see the president besieged and wonder if now is the time, while he's distracted, to try for some advantage.  Kim Jong-un may calculate that it is not in his interest to deal with a president whose clout is diminishing by the day.

In an essay for PJ Media, Roger Simon says the president must now act the "strong horse" on the international stage, and God help us if he holds back.  I think it's likelier, Trump being Trump, that the president will counter the perception of weakness by being more aggressive than he might have been, absent the war against him.

The people who want to bring Trump down are not patriots.  Their hatred for the president and his policies supersedes whatever respect they hold for the Constitution and our system.  They proudly wear blinders, unmoved by the millions who are appalled by Mueller's crusade.  The raging left doesn't understand the paradigm it's unleashed in American politics.

What goes around comes around.  However Mueller's quest plays out, he has midwifed a new era of partisan warfare in this country.  That is his legacy.  And his shame.

Steve Grammatico is the author of You Hear Me, Barack? PC-Free Conservative Satire.  He blogs at youhearmebarack.blogspot.com.