For weeks, the nation has watched, transfixed, as Donald Trump stood trial in the first-ever criminal prosecution of a former president. This is not the first time Trump has been the defendant in a major trial, and in many ways the potential consequences of this criminal case pale in comparison to Trump’s business fraud case and E. Jean Carroll’s defamation suit, which together exceed half a billion dollars in civil judgments. But the significance of Trump’s criminal conviction at the hands of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg seems to dwarf Trump’s other legal entanglements.

That’s because criminal law plays a unique role, not just in our legal system, but in society at large. It is how the state takes action to protect citizens from harm, promote public safety, and hold wrongdoers accountable. It’s also how we illustrate what’s right and wrong and publicly mark that certain acts are simply not acceptable—that they are condemned by the community at large.

Nobody should be above the law. In furtherance of this principle, local prosecutors in Manhattan have successfully prosecuted one of the most powerful men in the world.

Of course, we all know who is most likely to be on the receiving end of that condemnation. Most prosecutorial offices spend the vast majority of their resources prosecuting street-level crimes and low level offenders who are disproportionately likely to be people of color, suffer from substance use disorders or mental health problems, and live in poverty. Because of these inequities, progressives are generally distrustful of the criminal justice system, and the “progressive prosecutor” movement that has emerged in recent years—and that is currently facing backlash in some parts of the country—has primarily focused its agenda on prosecuting less: bringing fewer charges, seeking lower sentences, working towards decreased incarceration.

These are critically important priorities. But District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s successful prosecution of Donald Trump highlights that being a “progressive prosecutor” isn’t just about prosecuting less. Rather, it can—and should—also be about using the power of the criminal justice system to protect our communities from all who would do them harm, particularly the rich and well-connected whose wealth so often allows them to escape accountability for the harms they commit, regardless of how severely they threaten public safety or welfare.

The truth is that criminal prosecution has a great track record of forcing powerful actors to stop endangering others, even when all other methods have failed. Take, for example, the prosecution of the poultry rendering company Central Industries,........

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