It Is All Unraveling On Trump

The criminal conviction is just the latest thread to be pulled in a year that shaping up to be the great unraveling of Donald Trump.

The Daily is a 100% reader-supported newsletter committed to freedom and democracy. By becoming a subscriber, you can help our work continue to grow.

Trump Is Convicted, So Now What?

Many people have been waiting for Donald J. Trump to be held accountable for his actions for years, and for many Americans, it was a cathartic moment to see accountability finally catch up to Trump in some form.

The moment in the Manhattan courtroom when Donald Trump stood and the word guilty was spoken to him 34 consecutive times was one that many felt would never come, but it did, and in the immediate aftermath, I took a few days to think, and no matter what I else I was doing one question popped into my head.

So, now what?

The media and the rest of the country appear to be trying to answer the same question. The press is in a mad dash to draw way too early conclusions about the impact of the guilty verdict on the presidential election when the truth is that we may not know if or how much damage the verdict has done to Trump until the votes are counted in November.

Republicans have put the nation in a terrible position by sticking with their presumptive convicted felon nominee, but the truth that no one wants to really talk about is that the Republican Party could not get rid of Trump if they wanted to.

When Donald Trump took control of the Republican National Committee, he took control of the Republican Party.

It would not matter if the top 100 elected Republicans in the country wanted to show Trump the door, the only mechanism for doing so is now firmly under the control of Donald J. Trump, and there is no assurance that he will surrender that control even if he loses in 2024.

People don’t seem to be asking the correct question right now. The larger question, as we will discuss below, is what this verdict means for Trump, as 2024 is shaping up to be the year of his great unraveling.