The trial of Donald Trump on charges that he conspired to undermine the peaceful transition of power will likely be a show trial – but not in the usual sense of the words. The phrase “show trial” has two connotations. In the most common understanding of the term, those connotations are negative: Show trials in authoritarian regimes are sham trials used for propaganda purposes where the outcome is predetermined and the defendants condemned as traitors to the motherland. Think of the show trials mounted by the Baathist regime under Saddam Hussein, the show trials of Josef Stalin’s dictatorship, or those...