A Nation of Alternative Realities

It is, in a disturbing way, not unlike that moment after the notorious trial of O.J. Simpson in 1995, when Americans suddenly realized they saw the same set of facts in diametrically opposite ways and were far more divided as a nation than they’d known.

Only this time, the stakes are many times greater. And once again, the world will watch in horrified fascination as the lone superpower turns in on itself in what can only be described as a state of uncivil war.

Following former President Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 criminal counts in New York City on Thursday—which made him the first former president in U.S. history to become a felon—Democrats erupted in relief and Republicans in vows of retribution. It quickly became clear that, as Columbia University historian Timothy Naftali tweeted, “We’ve entered new political & legal territory as a Nation.”

Or as Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote despairingly after the trial, the “new thing” about the United States is “that we’re enjoying the estrangement.” She quoted comedian Bill Maher as noting that large portions of the country have become “no-go zones” for the other side: Trumpers are unlikely to ride the New York City subway wearing MAGA hats and not many would dare attend a NASCAR race in the South wearing a T-shirt showing support for President Joe Biden.

Ironically, both sides of the political spectrum are now invoking the U.S. Constitution as the thing they most want to protect. For Democrats, it’s about holding Trump accountable under the Constitution; for Republicans, it’s about stopping the so-called unconstitutional weaponization of a federal government that they believe is overpopulated by Democrats and progressives.

Nor do there appear to be any prospects that the two sides are willing to enter into negotiations over the issue. Even before the verdict, Trump and the Republican Party were keen to overturn a Justice Department and judicial system that they were certain was rigged against them—this despite Trump’s first-term success in creating a majority conservative Supreme Court. This agenda included plans to eliminate the Justice Department’s traditional independence; to legally target Biden and his supporters; and to deploy a controversial “unitary executive theory” of the Constitution, under which Article II would give the president complete power over the executive branch.

That agenda item is now likely to move to the top of the list—and with a vengeance unlike anything seen in decades. As Naftali wrote, “Donald Trump will now force every GOP candidate to trash our judicial system. There will be a chorus of poison likely worse than what we heard before Jan. 6th. Should he win, he’d have a more toxic mandate than in ‘17.”

The “chorus” emerged almost immediately. “Kangaroo court” was the phrase that many Republicans applied to the New York Supreme Court overseen by Judge Juan Merchan, and leading members of the party were quick to accuse District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the charges against Trump, of being in the pocket of multibillionaire George Soros, a favorite bogeyman of the right.

Even some Republicans who were seen as less-than-total Trump supporters, such as Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, appeared to see the judgment as a rallying cry. “This verdict is a disgrace, and this trial should have never happened. Now more than ever, we need to rally around @realdonaldtrump, take back the White House and Senate, and get this country back on track. The real verdict will be Election Day,” tweeted Cornyn, who once said he didn’t think Trump could win in 2024.

The judicial tit for tat could resume as soon as Monday, when jury selection begins in Delaware for the criminal trial of Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, on gun charges. Republicans are likely to use that occasion to resurrect allegations that the president illegally helped his son’s businesses abroad.

Some legal experts questioned whether Trump—who was convicted of falsifying business documents to cover up a payment to silence porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election—should have been charged with a felony, and his appeal is thought to have fair prospects. But the 12-person jury found him guilty of every charge, and there is almost no chance that he can successfully appeal before the Nov. 5 election. Trump faces possible prison time when he is sentenced on July 11—only a few days before the Republican National Convention—but he is unlikely to do time.

The effects of the so-called hush money trial’s verdict on the election itself, just five months away, remain unclear. According to several polls taken before Trump’s conviction, a small number of swing voters have said they would hesitate to put a felon in the White House. For example, a survey by Marquette Law School taken during the trial found that a small Trump lead among registered voters became a four-point edge for Biden in the event of a conviction.

Some political experts are skeptical of any serious effect, however. “I think that likely voters’ opinions about Donald Trump are highly crystallized at this point, and I think there will be very little impact. This is because there are very few persuadable voters,” said Todd Belt, a political scientist at George Washington University. And as New York Times pollster Nate Cohn wrote, Trump actually “saw his support increase after four sets of criminal indictments last year.”

But Naftali, writing in an email to Foreign Policy, believed that Biden’s odds have improved after months in which the president has remained mired at approval ratings less than 40 percent, and several polls show him losing to Trump.

“If Biden wins, the odds of which have likely improved since the jury reached its verdict, the current GOP will face a stark choice: to abandon Donald Trump as a two-time loser and re-center the Party or to double down and rhetorically burn down the legal system that convicted Trump,” Naftali wrote. “The Trump legal narrative will not just fade away. If Trump does not control the presidential pardoning power in 2025, he will likely be found guilty in one or more of the three remaining cases.”

Trump also faces two federal trials and a state trial in Georgia—the latter related to charges that he attempted to overturn the 2020 election—but they are all unlikely to reach a verdict before Election Day.

The immediate response of the Biden campaign was to avoid exploiting Trump’s criminal cases. But some Democratic political consultants said that the campaign shouldn’t hesitate to remind voters that never before has a convicted felon been elected to be the U.S. president.

A criminal trial can dramatically alter a reputation for good—even if there is no conviction. That is what happened in the case of Simpson, the former football star and celebrity who was acquitted of murdering his wife and another victim despite overwhelming evidence. The verdict divided the nation into bitter camps and delivered a presentiment of the racial issues that would later erupt along with the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I think that we are likely to have a situation similar to the post-O.J. Simpson trial, where you have two very different perspectives on the culpability of the accused and the legitimacy of the justice system,” Belt said.

Whoever wins the November election, those starkly different views of one of the mainstays of U.S. democracy—its justice system—will likely have a corroding effect for a long time to come. And that can only further create doubts among the nation’s allies and give comfort to its enemies.

As Julia Davis, a journalist who runs the Russian Media Monitor, quoted Andrey Sidorov of Moscow State University as saying before the 2022 midterm elections: “Trump generates a lot of hatred in America’s society. From my standpoint, the more they hate each other, the better it is for us.”