Revenge on the avenger

Za "Time" from New York

Donald Trump has been branded a criminal by his hometown, but unlike others who grew up in Queens, he makes no effort to hide what is seen in this quiet suburb of New York as no small shame. Moreover, messages with his name as the sender arrive on the mobile phones of acquaintances and strangers.

"Everything fell apart, I was convicted in a rigged trial," says Trump, calling for the continuation of the story about the "rigged process" to be read on the following link.

What it says next can only be said by those who have stepped into the world of WinRed, the Republican digital fundraising platform, although the gist of the message may be best understood by those who grew up on the tough streets of the neighboring Bronx: the police do not catch all who break the law, but those who do. it is not easy to find themselves in court, so they lament their fate and repeat how they are victims of someone's conspiracy.

The former president has no qualms about who is on his mind: Joseph Biden "approved his assassination" during the search of the Mar-a-Lago resort in 2022; the entire trial was "disgraceful", "dishonest" and "conducted by Biden and his people"; judge Juan Mercan is a "tyrant"; "corrupt" and "sick people" are sitting in the office of prosecutor Alvin Braga; all together it is a "political witch hunt" while millions of illegal immigrants enter the country, and the president and "the group of fascists around him" do not want to do anything. This is what Donald Trump's reality looks like.

He has already announced an appeal against the verdict after the sentencing, which is scheduled for July 11, but regardless of the outcome of the trial, a new page in American history has already been written. For the first time since the existence of this country, a former president has been convicted of a crime. Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of indictment, and each of those falsification of business records was used to cover up secret cash payments to porn actress Stephanie Clifford to keep quiet about their alleged sex affair during the 2016 presidential campaign. That dashed all his hopes that at least one of the twelve members of the Manhattan Criminal Court jury would plead not guilty, which would lead to a retrial.

RISK OF VIOLENCE

When a president and White House candidate says the country's legal system is broken, it's easy to understand why his supporters are calling for a search for jurors "who should hang outside the courthouse," calling for "the gallows for traitors," murders, riots and rebellion. Many warn that the danger of violence in the country has never been greater, although all these claims about divisions in American society should be taken with some kind of reservation.

And while the jurors weighed arguments about Trump's guilt, in Princeton, an hour's drive from the New York courtroom, an annual gathering of those who graduated from this elite American university was organized. Everyone who could came, from the rare survivors who graduated in the 1943s and who, holding each other in the shade of the sycamore tree, stood at the head of the procession with a flag with the year XNUMX written on it, to those who had just graduated from that school, together with family members, relatives or friends. Several thousand people, who traveled from various parts of America, socialized for three whole days: they chatted, ate, drank, listened to music, sang and danced on the lawns of the campus where they spent their youthful days. Anything and everything was discussed, but no one was heard to mention anything that had to do with politics, let alone debate whether Biden's Justice Department had actually authorized the FBI to kill Trump, as he repeats, nor is Trump a threat to American democracy, as claimed by the campaign staff of Biden and Kamala Harris.

UNITED IN DIVISIONS

The citizens of America are divided by party, but they are still fundamentally united around the basic values ​​of this society, which primarily refers to freedom of choice and equality before the law. Considering that the latter, after the verdict against Trump, was called into question for some, they will use the former to solve it as they think is best. They will say what they think about all this at the polls on November 5, and in the meantime they will search Princeton for the benches they sat in during lectures, tour the sports hall where they once beat Harvard in the Ivy League basketball final, try to find their faces in old photos hanging around student clubs, to check whose tent has the best barbecue, to ask colleagues who live on the East Coast if it's worth moving five thousand kilometers away from California because of lower taxes, should they buy a Tesla or wait for the new Chevrolet Equinox, or casually chat about families, mutual friends and stocks worth investing money in that they save for the days when they are gone could work.

The decency not to start conversations that could become uncomfortable does not mean that the American people are unaware of what is happening on the political scene, because the upcoming vote is not only a choice between two presidential candidates that nobody likes too much, but a question of whether he can believe more in the legal order of the country or in a man called Donald Trump, and he does not hide that he would take revenge on all those who were against him if he found himself at the head of the country again; whether to stick to the reality that rests on the judicial system and institutions or the world that is invoked by a man who has spent his life and managed business in a kind of gray zone, always on the verge of conflict with the law.

Therefore, both candidates are perfectly aware of the importance of the presidential election, and this is one of the few things they agreed on immediately after the decision of the Manhattan Criminal Court. While the former president says that "the real verdict will be passed by the people on November 5", the head of the White House retorts that the polls are the only way to stop Trump from entering the Oval Office. What that path to the ballot box will look like is not completely clear to anyone, because the verdict against Trump has opened a door that no one has stepped through until now.

It is completely uncertain what will happen if Donald Trump is sentenced to prison or house arrest in July, although the former is less likely than the latter, as it is the only crime he has committed, and that without the use of violence. Some types of restrictions are not completely ruled out, since he violated the ban on commenting on the work of the court ten times during the process itself, for which he had to pay $10.000, and when Judge Mercan begins to assess the degree of remorse of the convict for the crime committed, which affects the amount of the sentence , he will have something to see. Not only did he call himself "corrupt" and "rotten", with descriptions that he "looks like an angel, but is actually the devil", and he declared the institution that condemned him to be a "kangaroo court", which alludes to the twisting of all legal norms , already on Fox openly threatens the reaction of the public that would not accept a prison sentence, because it would reach a breaking point.

But even without stating what follows after that point, there are already enough unknowns. No one can say how someone who, being a former president, always has to have Secret Service agents by his side would do anything more than a fine, but it's already clear that the process of deciding Trump's appeals won't end before the election, so it will be clearer to the judges of the Court of Appeals what they can do after that. If he loses, Trump could very well end up in prison -- the Manhattan case is far less lenient than charges of attacking the Capitol, trying to overturn the results of the Georgia vote, or illegally withholding documents containing state secrets.

NEW YORK REVENGE

Although court verdicts serve to conclude a case and mark the offender, here it is turned on its head. The entire Republican Party, despite all internal divisions and differences, openly stood by Trump, while his presidential campaign collected a record 36 million dollars during the 53 hours after the verdict was pronounced, which represents a direct reward for the convict. Even the latest public opinion survey by ABC and Ipsos does not show that the verdict has affected Trump's rating, because he is still supported by 31 percent of voters, which is only one percentage point less than the support enjoyed by President Joseph Biden. Therefore, it is completely understandable why Trump wants to announce to everyone what the vast majority of those who came from the hidden Queens would hide.

Moreover, those who were dragged into the abyss of WinRed by the link in the message will see there that Trump, even before his sentence, declared himself a political prisoner who says that he will never surrender in the fight "against the tyranny of the left" and the "deep state". ". Those who truly support him can show their loyalty with monetary donations. If they believe that the former president did nothing wrong - $100, twice as much is expected for the opinion that Donald Trump is the best president, while the basic support for his candidacy costs only $20,24, although it can be much more, by free choice. The page is full of names of those who have paid money, more and more money is collected every day, but it will not help him much in the city where he always wanted to be accepted, respected and appreciated.

He can continue to buy buildings around Manhattan, increase his wealth and promise a different reality than the existing one, but his city will not follow him. It's not so much about loving the Democrats as it is about New Yorkers holding on to their freedom and the world they live in. They don't need better than that.