By the time you read this, we may know whether or not Donald Trump is a convicted felon or not, at least pending appeal (and, perhaps, a pardon by himself or whoever the next Republican president might be). Or maybe we’ll still be waiting, as I am as I write this. A few notes, bullet-point style:
He’s No Teflon Don: Whether it’s about the many stories about sexual assault over the years culminating in a jury’s finding him to be essentially a rapist, or the current felony case, or the other three felony indictments, and on and on, I see the same complaint — it just doesn’t matter. One popular theory is that Trump has “flooded the zone” so that the enormity of each of his transgressions doesn’t sink it.
I don’t buy it at all. It’s important to remember the context, which gives us the range of plausible outcomes. For 75 years of polling, and from Harry Truman to George W. Bush, we know that no president has gone below 25% approval. If anything, the logic of increased partisanship should have raised that floor. Trump, to be fair, never reached it…but he has always been unpopular, and was unpopular as president even when objective indicators suggested his approval rating should have been 15 or more percentages points higher. Right now, he’s polling a point or two better than a president who is at 38% approval in head-to-head match-ups. That’s not someone who has escaped popular opinion consequences for his faults.
We Don’t Know Whether a Conviction Would Matter: We just don’t, and asking people doesn’t help; we’re all very bad at predicting such things about ourselves. What I can say is that the potential effects are limited. That core group of strong Trump supporters aren’t going anywhere. It’s also very difficult for me to imagine the person who disliked Trump originally, still disliked him when he was indicted, still disliked him during the trial, and then would turn around and like him if he was convicted. Together, that makes up some 75% of the voting public, give or take, who aren’t going anywhere.1
It is easy to imagine potential reluctant Trump voters for whom a conviction turns out to be the last straw that makes him impossible to vote for — as well as someone for whom a conviction would eventually be the (necessary) second-to-last or third-to-last straw. But whether that group turns out to be electorally significant or not? We just have to wait and see.
The Jury is Only the Jury: As far as what the public should think about Trump…the jury will determine whether he’s guilty or not, but the rest of us don’t have to wait to assess what the Stormy Daniels/National Inquirer story says about Trump. And even by the most generous reading, it’s pretty devastating stuff.
Not just because of the substance of the trial. Even if all of it was false (which to me seems extremely unlikely!), the way that Trump has acted over the course of the trial and the months leading up to it is — on the merits — utterly disqualifying for any public office. It’s simple: He constantly, in statement after statement and public action after public action, works to undermine the rule of law. Far more than Richard Nixon ever did in public. Far, far more than other presidents caught in scandal have done. Yes, many presidents and other elected officials have lashed out in anger in occasional ill-advised remarks. But a full-on assault on the legal system in general? Trump stands alone among presidents, and there’s really no close second.
The GOP Is Stuck: Obviously, the Republican Party has chosen to support him anyway, for whatever reasons. And now that he’s the nominee, they have only bad choices. That doesn’t excuse the specific bad choice they’re prepared to make — backing a convicted felon (with several other indictments, contempt for democracy, etc., etc.). But it’s also true that at this point turning against him would either (and most likely) be futile or, if successful, would destroy the party, perhaps for a very long time. Or both. Indeed, once they failed to stand hard against him in the months leading up to the 2016 convention, they’ve had only bad choices. At least, that’s what I’d say for most of the party: The politicians who have been humiliated and in many cases have had their careers ended by him; the governing professionals who have been sidelined and in many cases driven from the party; everyone who has to choose between supporting democracy and staying loyal to the party’s leader.2
I will note however that Republican-aligned media who bet on Trump to generate constant controversy — and therefore good ratings and book sales and the rest — have made out pretty well. As has been the case for years, allowing such people and organizations to have massive influence within the party has made the GOP dysfunctional. So as much as Trump has produced nothing but bad choices for Republicans, he’s as much a consequence of that pre-existing condition as he is a new cause of dysfunction.
Let’s see what the jury says.
One caveat. It is possible that a felony conviction could have some effect on some of those who don’t like Trump but are also not enthusiastic about the current president, driving them to vote Biden instead of staying home or voting third party. We won’t really know, especially since we would expect some from this anti-Trump group to drift back to Biden regardless.
Yes, some within the party realized policy goals thanks to Trump’s three Supreme Court nominees and other judges placed on lower courts during his presidency. But the Justices he selected were essentially generic GOP picks who any Republican president would have chosen, and in fact they appear to be if anything somewhat less extreme than Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.