This is an extremely strange moment for American democracy. Polls suggest that Independent voters — the people who decide American elections — will not vote for a man who is a convicted felon.
But now Donald Trump, currently the favorite to win re-election in November, has been found guilty on thirty-four counts of falsifying business records — and nobody knows if that verdict will make him more popular or less.
On one hand, Trump has been traduced — thirty-four times over — because a court has decided that, yes, he deliberately altered his financial accounts, possibly for election campaign reasons, back in 2016. He is now a convict. Trump has a murky past. That past has now caught up with him.
On the other hand, this Manhattan case has always felt like a political hit-job — proof of what Trump has long claimed, that the system is rigged against him, that the Democrats will stop at nothing to keep him out of power. Alvin Bragg, the district attorney, cobbled together various allegations of misdemeanors and turned them into an indictment. Now a Manhattan jury has found that Trump did deliberately and knowingly take part in fraud in order to cover up his allegedly adultery.
We are yet to find out what Trump’s sentence will be — July 11 is the day we might discover whether he goes to jail or not.
“A rigged trial, a disgrace,” said Trump outside the court room Thursday. “The real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people… our country has gone to hell.”
What really frightens Democrats is that he might be proved right. The “lawfare” against Trump so far been a boon for him politically. Ever since his mugshot was taken in a Fulton County jailhouse in August last year, his poll scores have improved. The question now is do Americans have enough faith in their justice system to believe that Trump is guilty — or will they think that Joe Biden, and his party, are the real villains? The next few days of polling should give us some idea of the answer.
