Donald Trump is a criminal – and his conviction is a catastrophe for America

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Stephen Marche is a Toronto-based journalist and the author of The Next Civil War: Dispatches of the American Future.

From the moment he descended the gilt escalators of Trump Tower to a waiting crowd of paid extras in 2015, Donald Trump has guided American politics through the looking glass. The distortion has grown by what it fed on. And now, with his conviction on 34 felony counts related to covering up a hush-money scheme, observers of the American political scene have to consider further unprecedented realities.

For instance: the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States can no longer own a gun, but he will be able to vote for himself, since Florida, where he is a resident, allows felons to vote following out-of-state convictions. And – I checked – it is possible to run for and hold the office of president from a prison cell.

A president in shackles is a remote prospect, however. Donald Trump is a first-time offender, and the courts convicted him of non-violent crimes. The judge would also have to consider the political consequences of a custodial sentence, as well as the effects on his Secret Service detail, which would have to negotiate protection from within prison.

Fines and community service are real possibilities, though. What kind of spectacle would result from Donald Trump cleaning a roadside in an orange jumpsuit?

There has been no lack of Democrats celebrating Mr. Trump’s conviction. But anyone who is concerned for the health of American democracy should consider what effect such scenes will have on his supporters. Don’t get it twisted: Thursday was a catastrophic day for the Republic. The chances of a Trump presidency increased drastically. Nothing has more glamour in American life than the status of an outlaw, and Mr. Trump now qualifies. And Christians in the U.S. will not see a conviction relating to hush-money payments to a porn star as the comeuppance for an immoral life; they will see it as persecution by secular society.

The law worked, it is true. But the idea that Mr. Trump’s conviction is evidence of the system working is simply inaccurate. A powerful man committed a crime, and he was held responsible; so far so good. The Biden administration offered a single comment: “Nobody is above the law.” They are right. But the legal system only works if its validity is accepted by the people under it. The law only works if it is a transcendent force subsuming the fury of partisan politics.

The United States’ legal system is in the process of becoming just the narrow representation of the political interests of those who appointed the judges. Mr. Trump has already described himself as a “political prisoner,” and he has plenty of allies, including Representative Jim Jordan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, who has condemned what he called a “kangaroo court.” Even right-wing publications that have been critical of Mr. Trump in other circumstances, such as The New York Post, have taken his side. Meanwhile, acolytes have entered apocalyptic mode. “We’ve been calling it lawfare. I think lawfare is far too soft, it’s far too benign,” Fox News’s Jeanine Pirro declared. “This is warfare!”

The notion that anyone in America will use this as a moment to consider the larger interests of the Republic is laughable. An upside-down flag even flew outside the home of a Supreme Court justice, while he refuses to recuse himself from sedition trials. The courts are now simply politics by other means.

The hollowing-out of legal institutions is a textbook part of the process by which countries fall apart, and into civil war: Vectors of polarization overtake the means of legitimacy. Anyone who believes that somehow the conviction will mark a return to sanity – that it will somehow be a moment of reckoning – should remember all the other times they thought America had received its wake-up call when it comes to Mr. Trump: the Access Hollywood tape, his plan to buy Greenland, January 6.

No wake-up call is coming. America cannot hear.

Indeed, the one benefit of the conviction is that it allows a certain measure of clarity: Donald Trump is a criminal. There is no other word for him. Such clarity can be dangerous, though: What if the Americans want a criminal president? What if they want to become a criminal country?

The American political system is so complex, fragile and vulnerable that the slightest gesture can have vast consequences. Distortion leads only to more distortion. Each unprecedented scene leads to the possibility of more. Mr. Trump’s sentencing takes place July 11 – four days before the Republican National Convention where he will be nominated.

Time is running out. And the next six months will be the most perilous for the Republic since the founding of the country.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify that a single upside-down flag flew outside the home of a Supreme Court justice.