The Emperor Has No Clothes

Why the Trump conviction smashes his aura of invincibility.

Trump’s naked NYC statue. Image: James Bareham / The Verge

by Ben Cohen

Just two hours after recording The Banter Roundtable Podcast, the jury in Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial delivered their verdict. The former president was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

Justin and I had been discussing the trial in the show, and I had expressed some doubt that Trump was going to be found guilty. Even if he was I argued, I didn’t believe he would go to prison, and it wouldn’t do much to dent his support in November.

But as the counts were being read live on NBC, something shifted. Finally, the most egregiously criminal president in US history was being held to account for his crimes. This is far worse for Trump than I previously thought.

A government of laws

Trump is now officially a convicted felon, the first to ever run for the White House. And this matters — not because Trump might go to prison (the odds are he won’t), but because it pierces Trump’s aura of invincibility.

As John Adams once wrote, America is “a government of laws, not of men”. This has always been America’s promise — not always kept, but fought for by many. Trump’s conviction is an example of America living up to that promise.

Donald Trump has flouted the law for his entire adult life. From rape to stealing from contractors, blackmailing foreign leaders, and trying to overturn an election, Trump’s ability to evade justice has been otherworldly. His rise to power exemplified everything wrong with America. A dangerously narcissistic, racist sociopath became president by appealing to America’s worst instincts. He flouted his money, expressed admiration for dictators, called women ugly, insulted war heroes, and built a campaign around xenophobia and ethnonationalism.

Congress couldn’t impeach him for obvious crimes, even when he tried to overturn the 2020 election. He was found liable for sexual abuse in a civil trial against E. Jean Carroll, but his criminal record remained clean. Trump and his legal team even managed to defer three of the four criminal trials he faced until after November of 2024 — a stunning coup that drastically improved his chances of staying out of prison.

An ominous sign

The New York hush money trial was widely viewed as being the weakest and least likely to succeed. While the evidence was solid, white collar crimes are notoriously tricky to prosecute, and Trump almost certainly believed he’d walk away unscathed.

But he didn’t, and his conviction will stay on his record and make future convictions more likely, particularly given the other cases against him have far more damning evidence.

Trump was convicted by a jury of his peers, and his wealth and status as a former president didn’t count for anything. This means that Trump, and others like him, are not untouchable. While flawed, the legal system in America still works, and Trump’s conviction reasserts the ideal that no one is above the law.

The emperor has no clothes

Donald Trump is a conman and a grifter. This isn’t meant as an insult, just a description of who he is. His first run at the presidency was almost certainly a ruse to boost his flagging profile. He did not expect to win, and was more surprised than anyone when the results came in.

Trump then used the White House to rake in as much cash as he could, treating the US government as a marketing tool for his brand. As those in his administration found out, Trump had no business being in the Oval Office. He was undisciplined, erratic, and completely incapable of performing his duties as president. Furthermore, Trump didn’t believe in anything other than enriching himself, and over time his staff abandon him when they realized it was all a giant con.

“These people, they objectify human beings,” former Trump press secretary Anthony Scaramucci said of his former boss. “They don’t look at you or me as flesh and blood and develop empathy for us, they see us as either a means to get us to a place that they need to get to, then they can immediately discard you, or they’ll run over you with indiscrimination.”

Of the many discarded employees, Scaramucci’s description of Trump was one of the more charitable.

Now that Trump has been convicted in a criminal court, Americans have a clearer picture of what the stakes are November. Do they vote for the fundamentally decent human being with a stellar track record in office, or the sociopathic conman with a criminal record?

The New York conviction might not finish Donald Trump, but it is going to hurt him badly. He is at the mercy of the American legal system, and he knows it. That will make Trump more desperate than ever. While a desperate Trump is a dangerous Trump, it also makes him far easier to beat.

“There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office,” the Biden campaign director said in a statement following Trump’s conviction.

“At the ballot box. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president."

He will be, but as the Biden campaign needs to keep reminding Americans, a convicted criminal nominee.

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