For decades, he skated. Nothing seemed to stick to the Teflon-coated businessman-turned-president. The guy who didn’t pay his bills, who constantly lied, who mocked a disabled journalist, who insulted a Gold Star family, who bragged about grabbing women by their private parts, who praised dictators, who urged a violent mob to overturn an election, who was unperturbed as his own vice-president was threatened with hanging.
Yes, he skated – through two impeachments, through countless investigations and accusations, and through so much chaos that responsible US citizens became almost numb and hopeless.
And then came Thursday afternoon, when 12 regular New Yorkers – against the odds and against the conventional wisdom – simply did their civic duty and convicted Donald Trump.
Unanimously. On all counts. And quickly. No hung jury, no hesitation – their deliberations lasted not weeks, but mere hours – and no mixed decisions.
It took the US jury system to finally bring some accountability, with quite a bit of help from an adult film actor, a sleazy tabloid executive and the ex-president’s former fixer, a notorious liar himself.
In a world so divided that our political tribes can’t seem to agree on a single fact, we now have one that is impossible to argue with: Trump is a convicted felon, the first US president to be convicted of a crime – the crime of falsifying documents to cover up a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, lest she tell her tale of their tryst.
That much we know. That much can’t be denied, no matter the bitter whining on Fox News or the inevitable claims of an unfair legal system and a corrupt judge.
And to those millions who have watched his destructive and sordid career for years, the jury’s decision in a New York courtroom brought a moment both regrettable and righteous.
Regrettable, of course, because it’s all so sordid and shameful that this conman was able to operate with impunity.
And righteous because somehow the truth won out in this lower Manhattan courtroom and because – quite simply – Trump deserves it.
What we don’t know is if it will matter to his bid for the presidency in November.
If you believe public opinion polls – it’s wise to be skeptical – it probably will make a difference. Not to his most loyal followers, of course, who have been taught to believe only him. These are the followers who, Trump himself famously said, wouldn’t change their votes if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue.
But to some number of reasonable Americans, it will matter. They will decide that they’d rather not put a convicted felon back in the White House, where he never belonged to begin with.
A new Marist poll released this week estimated that two-thirds of voters said a felony conviction wouldn’t change their minds. But 17% of the respondents (presumably representing millions of Americans) allowed that they would be less likely to vote for a convicted Trump.
The rightwing media, of course, will do what it can to save him. It’s already working on the case. In the initial hour or so after the verdict, the pundit and former prosecutor Jeanine Pirro, visibly indignant, told the Fox News faithful that “this is warfare,” and “God help America after what I’ve seen in the last two weeks.”
And Trump predictably blasted the trial as “rigged” and “disgraceful”, having said just on Wednesday that even the sainted Mother Teresa couldn’t have survived its horrors.
But two facts remain. Trump is now a convicted felon. And there is – after his endless and appalling parade of malfeasance – some semblance of justice.
Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
