More effective is politically motivated civil and criminal action against corporations, such as the Gibson and FedEx cases, for instance. Because most of antitrust and environmental law is as a practical matter up to the discretion of the relevant regulatory agencies, there is a strong financial incentive for CEOs to align their own and their company’s politics with the government’s.

Once this dynamic starts, it can’t be stopped, and we will likely see Democrats cementing their hold over the board room as effectively as they’ve done in, say, university English or Political Science departments.

The lesson of Perry episode is therefore not that one can, if an indictment is sufficiently absurd, successfully contest it.

Instead, the lesson is that large parts of the Democratic establishment support even an indictment as absurd as this. That establishment can’t actually hurt Perry much, but they are the ones who control many of the large federal agencies with discretionary litigation power.

Since Republicans ipso facto support less discretionary litigation power by federal agencies, Republicans cannot compete in this arena as effectively as Democrats, which is why I say this trend is inexorable.

Apparently Wendy Davis’s campaign was not just a Texas Democratic fluke…it’s the model.