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As a New York jury read the verdict in May of 2024, Donald Trump became a convicted felon.
“This was a rigged, disgraceful trial,” Trump reportedly said after he was found guilty of 34 charges in an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 election with hush money. Last summer, Trump faced up to four years in prison for falsifying business records to cover up paying off Stormy Daniels. But having won the presidency, the judge in his case, Justice Juan Merchan, gave Trump an “unconditional discharge,” meaning no jail time nor any other restrictions, believing it was the only legal option. This toothless sentence represents the impossibility of jailing the former and current president because of the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States, which gave him broad immunity.
Twenty years ago, these felonies might have deterred American voters from voting for Trump — along with the fact that he cheated on his wife with a porn actor and paid her off to stay quiet. These sorts of scandals used to be explosive. Democratic politicians like Gary Hart and John Edwards were shut out of the party due to revelations of their extramarital affairs. Most notably, Bill Clinton’s impeachment was predicated on lying about an affair he had with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.
However, in the post-Trump political climate, scandals involving affairs are simply not disqualifying. In Trump’s case, these indiscretions have not derailed his political pursuits at all — if anything, they have emboldened his base.
In an article from The Nation, Jeet Heer writes that we live in “an age of anti-system rage, which has now expanded from impoverished areas like Washington, DC, and Louisiana to the entire United States. Trump’s popularity is due to the fact that he can give voice, however fraudulently, to anti-system anger.” The court cases represent “the system,” which voters are broadly and fiercely against. The idea that liberals can use the law to hold Trump accountable has evaporated. No matter what decision the courts come to, Trump will write it off to his followers as a political attack by “the system” against him, personally.
Additionally, his campaigns have used images of his mugshot (above) or the picture taken after the failed assassination attempt in Pennsylvania (below) to fundraise and strengthen his base, furthering the idea that “the left is out to get him.”
When the national sentiment leans hard toward anti-establishment, it is simply not possible for the Democrats to portray President Trump as corrupt and dangerous by appealing to notions of fairness and justice, law and order.
But Trump is more than a criminal. As inflation and inequality rises, and his fiscal policies begin to hurt American families, Democrats may be able to turn voters against Trump by portraying him as just another privileged member of the 1%, a real estate nepo baby looking out for no one but himself. If the Democrats can shift their attention away from the court system and take seriously the strong undercurrent of populist rage, they may have more success pushing the narrative that Donald Trump is a dangerous threat — even outside of his many crimes.
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