RealClearPolitics senior elections analyst Sean Trende spoke to RCP’s Tom Bevin during the outlet’s daily radio show on Thursday about what he sees as the long-term implications of former President Donald Trump’s conviction and ongoing prosecutions, predicting that if he wins again in November, he’ll retaliate.

“I think this is actually, in a lot of ways, similar to the impeachment of Clinton, where Republicans just hated Bill Clinton. They couldn’t believe that nothing would stick to him. And then they finally had him dead to rights on something — he perjured himself,” Trende said. “They didn’t get much in return, but it broke our politics. It’s really one of the core things of the kind of nastiness in today’s politics.

“I think this is very much analogous. The Democrats’ response to the Clinton impeachment was, ‘Look, you’re impeaching Clinton for having an affair with an intern.’ Republicans were like, ‘No, it’s perjury and obstruction of justice.’ Democrats were dismissive. I think it’s kind of a similar thing here, where, yeah, you technically got Trump on some bookkeeping,” Trende claimed further.

“It could get really nasty out there, and if Trump wins, the only way out without breaking things further would be for Trump to win and not seek retribution. But that doesn’t seem to be in his repertoire. Now it’s about revenge. I just don’t see him not punching back. That’s what he does. He hates to look weak. If he doesn’t bring some prosecutions, he looks weak,” said the analyst.

“Prosecutions of political opponents are a step up from that, and I think it’s going to become part of our national lexicon. It could get very ugly before it gets better,” he said.

SiriusXM podcaster and lawyer Megyn Kelly thinks the only way to stop the lawfare is for Trump and GOP attorneys general to go after Democratic politicians to show them there are repercussions to abusing the justice system for political aims. She said during her show after Trump’s conviction that Democrats would continue to fabricate and pursue charges against Republicans if GOP AGs did not respond in kind.

“The only way to save the Republic now is to give them a taste of their own medicine. That’s it. That’s it. They tasted blood today. They’re the wolves with the bloody piece of meat in their mouths. That doesn’t stop the wolf from coming back for more. The only thing that will stop him is if he loses a limb of his own,” she said.