Why Donald Trump’s Unanimous Conviction Is Heartbreaking

Donald Trump is guilty.

On Thursday afternoon, after less than 10 hours of deliberating, 12 ordinary jurors hailing from New York City found the former president guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal alleged affairs that threatened to implode his 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump’s reaction was as expected: The soon-to-be convicted felon emerged from the Manhattan courtroom defiant, declaring the verdict a “disgrace” while attacking the judge, the venue, the prosecutors and the judicial process itself.

Reactions from rank-and-file Republicans were just as predictable. Members of the so-called party of “law and order” were quick to defend their presumptive presidential nominee , shamelessly echoing his outright lies that the case was a “purely political exercise,” a sign of a “corrupt and rigged” justice system, and election interference “brought forward by Joe Biden” and his “allies.”

Senator, podcast guy and Cancún aficionado Ted Cruzwent on Fox News to share that in the wake of Trump’s unanimous conviction, he is “furious and heartbroken.”

While it’s reassuring to witness a judicial proceeding live up to the far-too-often fallacious claim that “no one is above the law,” I’m not celebrating. Instead — like the GOP Texas senator who apparently loves the NRA more than protecting fourth graders in their classrooms — I am also furious and heartbroken.

Don’t get me wrong: I disagree with MSNBC host Jen Psaki and other Democrats who are choosing to meet this historic moment with serious reverence simply because a former president was found guilty. Whatever a convicted felon running for the highest office in the land does to this country’s political, cultural and social fabric, it was and will