Political gifts that keep on giving are those policies, laws, regulations, events or people that a political party can use to keep its base angry or motivated and/or they can use to continually bludgeon their political opponents. They are quite rare and they are a precious commodity.
Canadian examples are the old Long Gun Registry and Justin Trudeau.
In the United States Donald Trump counts as one but the greatest gift that kept on giving was Roe v Wade. That particular decision was extremely useful to the Republicans for decades
Considering their usefulness political parties are very reluctant to change them, especially since doing so could have some unintended consequences.
You only need to look at the Long Gun Registry to see what happens when a political party surrenders such gifts. The Conservative Party of Canada bludgeoned the Liberals for years over that registry and the fact its implementation went way over budget. It kept their voters angry and motivated. However, when they won a majority government in 2011 they eliminated it. I realize they did not have much choice but when they did that they gave up a weapon they could use against the Liberals. So in 2015, when the Conservatives accused the Liberals of planning on bringing back the Gun Registry it was pathetic to watch. You could tell the party was really missing that particular gift. Then the Liberals won the election and instead of creating another Registry they just banned military style weapons. You see, the Gun Registry was a compromise to control the military style weapons without actually banning them. The message being you can keep your assault rifles but we want to know where they are. Of course, many gun owners believed the Registry was just a way to find all of the guns so that "the Liberals" could take them away and they fought against it and demanded a Conservative government eliminate it as soon as possible. So, the next time the Liberals decided to do something about assault weapons they just banned them, something they would not have done if the Gun Registry had still existed. So, by having the Gun Registry banned the outcome was the one most gun owners feared. Schmucks.
As for Roe v Wade, successive Republican presidents and politicians strung their supporters along for five decades. They railed against it but failed to actually do anything concrete about it. It never failed to fire up the base come election time. Then the Tea Party took over the Republican Party and they made the strategic mistake of actually nominating Presidential candidates that nominated judges who would overturn the decision. It finally happened and now they have provided the Democrats with a winning issue for the foreseeable future. You see, with Roe v Wade in place Republicans could not actually attempt or suggest a national ban on abortion. The law prevented it. With that decision overturned Trumplicans are going to demand such a national ban and that is trouble for the Republicans. You see, the reason why Republicans did nothing about Roe v Wade for so long is because abortion is not a winning issue for them. It is an issue to fire up the base but if they want to win the last thing they want to do is actually talk about a national ban. On the other hand the threat of a national ban is a boon for the Democrats. It is just such an issue that will motivate Democratic voters to vote. If you have been paying attention to the last four years you will have noted that during the 2018 midterms, the 2020 Presidential election and the 2020 special elections in Georgia, Democrats came out to vote in record numbers. In all cases they won. The math is simple. There are more Democrats in the US than Republicans. The Republicans know it, which is why they pursue laws and measures to suppress voting. Giving the Democrats an issue they can use to motivate their voters is a bad idea. And this is an issue that will just not go away. Say the Democrats win the House and Senate in November. They may pass a federal law protecting abortion, which would force the Republicans to promise to repeal such a law when they got the chance, providing the Democrats with the opportunity to use the threat of an abortion ban to motivate Democrats to vote 2024, 2026 and so on. In short, Republicans will be forced to propose a ban on abortions during every future election which for most strategically minded Republican is a nightmare.
Which brings us to Donald Trump and why he has not yet been indicted. It is simple really. In 2020 the fact he was President brought out Democrats to vote in unprecedented numbers. His reaction and actions after the 2020 election brought out Democrats in Georgia, allowing the Democrats to win control of the Senate. His presence and the stuff he has been saying and doing leading up to the 2022 mid-term elections are being used by Democrats to convince their voters that they need to vote in November, which when combined with the Dobbs decision could allow them to hang on to the House and gain full control of the Senate. In short, Donald Trump is now the gift that keeps on giving for the Democrats and they may be very reluctant to give him up by seeing him indicted. If his only alleged crime was he incited the January 6th insurrection they probably would not bother to indict him. The investigation would probably just drag on until after 2024. However, if there is evidence he kept nuclear secrets in his private home, after he left office, then authorities will have to act sooner but do not be surprised if they wait until after the mid-term elections are history.
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