If you search the internet for the term “raid,” two results precede all others: The second one refers to the popular bug-killing product Raid, which has been almost synonymous with the term “insecticide” since 1956.
The first is the execution last week of an FBI search warrant at former President Donald Trump’s seaside mansion Mar-a-Lago, which nearly everyone is calling a “raid.”
On the far right, the clientele at Gab.com, a social media site that specializes in complaint and grievance against just about everything, were outraged. One Gab poster fulminated: “This unelected, illegitimate regime crossed the line with their GESTAPO raid!”
More conventional conservatives were scandalized, as well, if somewhat more measured. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said: “The raid at MAL [Mar-a-Lago] is another escalation of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents.”
This sort of overwrought rhetoric is predictable in the Trump era of aggrieved bombast, even though it hasn’t the remotest connection with the facts. The execution of a search warrant duly approved by a federal judge based on evidence of probable cause is a concrete embodiment of our American system of the rule of law. It bears no resemblance to the traditional definition of the term “raid,” which nearly always connotes violence, irregularity and sometimes illegality.