Guilty. With this word the US election campaign was plunged into chaos.
For the first time in history, a former President became a convicted criminal.
The conviction perfectly plays into Donald Trump’s narrative; His political opponents are using “lawfare” to destroy him; He is fighting against various witch hunts launched by people who despise him and his voters, the infamous “deplorables” as Hillary Clinton once described them; He may be the convicted man but the “real” target is his supporters.
Trump came out of the courtroom with a visceral anger. This was a political prosecution, I’m a “very innocent man” and “this was a rigged disgraceful trial”, he said.
His voters, the fiercely loyal MAGA army, will share his anger.
The Democrats have just offered their opponents the greatest political gift imaginable: a reason to go out and vote on the 5th of November.
Fury is a great motivator, and do not underestimate the fury that is reverberating across the United States today.
Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, wrote on X responding to the verdict: “Import the Third World, become the Third World. That’s what we just saw. This won’t stop Trump. He’ll win the election if he’s not killed first. But it does mark the end of the fairest justice system in the world. Anyone who defends this verdict is a danger to you and your family.”
Meanwhile, prominent conservative talk show host Matt Walsh wrote: “Donald Trump should make and publish a list of ten high-ranking Democrat criminals who he will have arrested when he takes office. First on the list should be Joe Biden. Second should be Joe Biden's crackhead son.”
The pandora’s box the Democrats have opened by pursuing these prosecutions against Donald Trump may be impossible to shut.
And Trump and his supporters have no doubt these prosecutions are political. All the prosecutors in the various cases Trump faces are Democrats. Many liberals have openly celebrated Trump’s trials and his recent conviction.
They may regret their glee.
If President Trump does win in November, as looks ever more likely, he will be back with a vengeance.
Donald Trump is not the only Republican who has been prosecuted in recent years.
Peter Navarro, the former Director of the White House National Trade Council is currently sitting in a prison cell.
Steve Bannon, a former advisor to Trump, is facing his own charges and may very well be sent to prison too in the coming months.
Another Trump advisor, Roger Stone, had his house raided by the FBI live on CCN.
Then there are the protestors who were accused of insurrection on January 6, 2021.
Many of them are also in prison, with Republicans claiming these prosecutions were equally political.
If President Trump is elected again, he can pardon many of these people, for under the Constitution the President has the right to pardon anyone he likes for federal crimes.
He can also run for President from prison, and even be President from a cell; there are no rules against it.
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Meanwhile, the Democrats will fight even harder to prevent the man they see as posing a mortal danger to democracy from ever standing in the White House again.
President Biden’s campaign released the following statement reacting to the conviction: “The threat Trump poses to our democracy has never been greater. He is running an increasingly unhinged campaign of revenge and retribution, pledging to be a dictator
“On day one and calling for our Constitution to be 'terminated' so he can regain and keep power. A second Trump term means chaos, ripping away Americans' freedoms and fomenting political violence - and the American people will reject it this November.”
If Trump and his Maga allies’ fury is palpable today, the Democrats’ fear of this “dictator” being elected again is equally visible.
Trump’s conviction also has global implications.
Many view the United States as a worldwide beacon of democracy, but how can the greatest democracy on earth convict one of its Presidential candidates on charges so weak in nature?
This case was about how the Trump campaign incorrectly technically filed hush money paid to the porn star Stormy Daniels, hardly Watergate.
If any other country did this, surely the United States would protest.
They would, rightly, view these prosecutions as political and anti-democratic.
The next dictator who wants to imprison his political opponent only needs to look to the United States for precedent, and say: ‘If it can happen there, why not here?’
As the election campaign ramps up over the coming months emotions are only likely to heighten on all sides.
The protests seen on January 6, 2021, and the bloody BLM riots witnessed during the chaotic summer of 2022 may seem like picnics compared to what might come.
Trump still has a right to appeal, and if that fails he still might avoid prison with a lighter sentence. Yet he still faces other, stronger cases in other trials around the country.
The trials mean he will struggle to campaign in swing states; we have already seen how his having to be in New York has forced him to hold rallies in heavily Democrat areas.
As Trump and his supporters wait for the outcome of his appeal and potential sentencing, the world looks on at what was once the capital of democracy.