Now America faces an all-too-familiar challenge. The court system has once again delivered an outcome supported by the law and by substantial evidence. But will that change Republican hearts and minds?
If past performance can predict future results, I’m skeptical. After all, we watched as even Trump-nominated judges ruled time and again against Trump’s election challenges, yet a majority of Republicans still do not believe that Joe Biden legitimately won enough votes to carry the 2020 election. When the choice is between the law and the evidence or Donald Trump, Republicans have consistently picked Trump.
But is sexual abuse different? Can an actual jury verdict — after a trial featuring all the due process that American law requires — finally break the bond with Trump?
Here is the darkest possible outcome to the case, one that I fear is more likely than not. The Republican public will either shrug at the result or will simply choose to disbelieve the jury, assuming without evidence that it was biased against Trump. Indeed, when asked about the verdict, Senator Marco Rubio told a Bulwark reporter, “That jury’s a joke.” Senator Lindsey Graham said he questioned “the whole process” and told Punchbowl News, “I think you could convict Donald Trump of kidnapping Lindbergh’s baby.”
But would a jury so hopelessly biased against Trump jury reject Carroll’s rape claim? Or is that an indication that the jury actually weighed the evidence supporting each charge?
I hope and pray that Republicans don’t shrug. There are conservative women (including my own wife) who are themselves victims of sexual abuse and have watched, aghast, as Republicans have wrapped their arms around a man who’s faced an avalanche of allegations of sexual misconduct. Yet there was always an explanation, a rationalization for the continued support. They’re all lying, Trump’s defenders would claim. Nothing has been proven. Why didn’t they take him to court?
But E. Jean Carroll did. She did exactly what Trump’s defenders demanded. She went to court, faced cross-examination, looked the jury in the eye and made her claims. She provided witnesses who supported her story, under oath. The court gave Trump a chance to answer, to do the same thing — to look the jury in the eye and state his case. He declined.
The jury’s verdict echoes beyond politics. It implicates our nation’s moral core. Donald Trump had his day in court. He lost. Now the G.O.P. faces a very different kind of trial, one conducted not before a jury, but before a watching nation. It’s a test of decency, integrity and respect, and it is a great tragedy of our time that no one can presume that it’s a test the party will pass.
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