It’s been days since Donald Trump was found guilty of all those crimes, bringing the high-profile and historic trial in New York to a sudden and impressive end.
With that, the would-be Republican nominee for president became a convicted felon, and the country began to respond to what that meant for the party and for the 2024 presidential election, which feels like it’s finally underway.
We’ve collected some of those responses for you through opinion columns and content posted on the USA TODAY Network. Below are columns from professional writers and entries for everyday people trying to make sense of it all. You’ll find liberal and conservative voices writing about the verdict.
Trump, guilty on all counts, carries a new label into the 2024 elections: convicted felon
Donald Trump – an established liar and consistently vicious conspiracy theorist – will wear a new label in the 2024 presidential election: convicted felon.
It’s a fitting development for Trump, who spent his life dodging accountability, and for the Republicans who allowed a transparent con man to come in and trample on every form of decency their former Grand Old Party possessed.
The Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee will, of course, lament endlessly about the injustice done to him by a jury of his peers. He will attack the jurors, the judge, the prosecutor, the entire American justice system, Biden, all Democrats, the news media, every family member who has ever expressed even the mildest criticism of him. The radius of his reproaches will be global.
And some will buy it. – Rex Huppke, USA TODAY
Read the full column: Trump now has to campaign for the presidency as a convicted felon
Trump is guilty. It won’t make any difference this election.
While Trump’s conviction will make for some salacious headlines and non-stop cable news fodder, don’t count on it having any impact on the 2024 presidential election.
Those who are undecided are likely not planning to vote at all or will check the box for a third party candidate.
When will Trump be sentenced? How a prison sentence became a victory for Trump. | USA TODAY
A PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll released just before Trump’s ruling found that 67% of voters said a guilty verdict would not affect who they plan to vote for in November.
And 25% of Republicans said they would be even more likely to vote for Trump if he were found guilty.
– Ingrid Jacques, USA TODAY
Read the full column: Trump is guilty. It won’t change anything.
Conservatives, would we question Trump’s judgment if it were Biden?
For Republicans who knew Trump was unethical and immoral, this verdict confirms our suspicions. The guilty verdict makes these Republicans, like me, all the more frustrated that the Republican Party selected Trump as its de facto nominee.
Regardless of whether Republicans think Trump was guilty or the hush money trial was an example of justice, it is still sad and even maddening that we would choose to nominate someone who is now a convicted felon.
It’s still frustrating that any of us have to ask these questions. Is Trump really guilty? Was the hush money lawsuit legitimate? If Biden were on trial, would we even ask?
– Nicole Russell, USA TODAY
Read the column: I don’t like the questions Trump’s guilty verdict forces conservatives to ask ourselves
What have we learned from the Trump trial? He is counting on America to go with him.
In the early months of Donald Trump’s presidency, long before his much-publicized promises to overhaul health care, fix immigration and jump-start a massive infrastructure program fizzled out, I spoke with one of his most loyal Republican supporters.
Betsy Hower of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was no fool. Yes, she was a rock-solid Republican – a former party chair of Adams County, Pennsylvania. And yes, she felt that Trump could transform America and even had the personal charisma to “make America great again.”
But she also knew Trump’s personal shortcomings.
“He’s not a choir boy,” she said with the same level-headed certainty she used to describe the rolling beauty of the countryside near her town. “I know that.”
‘The Guiltiest’: 7 Editorial Cartoons About Donald Trump’s Conviction | Columbus Shipping
In that simple confession from just one Trump loyalist, you can find the roots of a recurring national dilemma that America is once again facing when Trump was found guilty Thursday in New York City of 34 charges of falsifying business records to pursue an alleged sexual to cover up the affair. with a porn actress on the eve of the 2016 elections.
We all know Trump’s shortcomings — and now the immensely historic fact that a former president and current presidential candidate is a convicted felon who could face prison time. But do those flaws – and that belief and possible incarceration – still matter?
— Mike Kelly, NorthJersey.com
Read the full column: Why aren’t Americans disgusted by Trump’s hush-money lawsuit?
Trump won’t be convicted until July. Until then, he should be locked up – just like us.
What will allow the former president to walk free after his conviction – on bail, as news experts have stated?
If sentencing doesn’t happen until July, that should mean he’s in an orange jumpsuit somewhere, enjoying all the benefits of prison food and life until then.
If he doesn’t, we will once again see that there are two levels of justice in our country: one for those who did, and one for the rest of us.
— Don Mayeski | Letters to the Editor, Arizona Republic
Read more letters about Trump’s verdict: Trump threatens our democracy. The verdict proves it.
Trump Allies: Stop Degrading Our Courts. He received a fair trial and could have testified.
What bothers me most about the Donald Trump phenomenon in this country is how educated representatives of American citizens are so willing to endanger the constitutional republic in which they function.
It is absolutely despicable, some would say deplorable, that individuals like House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as many other Republican congressional representatives and senators, are ridiculing a fundamental principle of our republic.
—Robert Landry | Letters to the Editor, Tennessean
Read the full letter: Donald Trump got a fair trial and he is angry that the jury found him guilty
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump is guilty. How conservatives and liberals responded speaks volumes
