Challenge the Trump ruling or be banned

There is a new front line in Donald Trump’s fight for his election.

Just minutes after Donald Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts, I heard from someone close to the former president who described the moment as a “civil war” within the Republican Party.

The historic nature of Trump’s conviction is being used by his campaign team as a kind of roll call to decide which politicians will defend the former president and which will defend the American legal system. Both seem impossible.

A weather balloon was launched last night.

Larry Hogan, a moderate Republican running for a vacant Senate seat in liberal-leaning Maryland, called on all Americans on social media to “respect the verdict and the legal process.”

Within minutes, Chris LaCivita, a senior Trump campaign official, posted a crystal-clear response to Mr. Hogan: “You just ended your campaign.” The implication: If you are not on our side on this issue, you are politically dead.

I asked another Republican official who worked on Trump’s last presidential campaign if he agreed that this was a “civil war” for his party. He rejected that notion. To him, it seems as though every war that once raged within his party was won long ago – by Donald Trump.

“Even if you don’t like Trump, he’s better than what we have (in Joe Biden),” he said. “It’s an easy choice.”

And right now, it seems like the vast majority of Republican politicians agree with him – at least publicly.

House Speaker Mike Johnson called Thursday “a shameful day in American history” and Trump’s conviction “purely a political maneuver, not a legal one.” Steve Scalise, another leading Republican in Congress, said the American legal system functions like a banana republic. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis compared the proceedings to a “sham court.”

But the former president’s fiercest defense may have come from Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who was one of Trump’s most vocal critics in 2016 when the two were rivals for the Republican nomination.

“This is a show trial of the highest order,” Rubio said. “This is the kind of thing you see in communist countries. I grew up hearing about it from people in the (Cuban exile) community who told me about it. It happened in the days after the Castro revolution.”

Comparing the American justice system – with its independent juries, public trials and rule of law – to that of communist Cuba will stun many Americans. Rubio doesn’t just say that those jurors made the wrong decision when they convicted Trump. He goes much further. He strongly condemns the American justice system as a whole.

But there is a clear political strategy behind it. This kind of defense is in line with Trump’s general belief that many of his problems have nothing to do with individuals – be they voters or jurors. Rather, he believes that many of the basic structures of the American government, such as the electoral process and the judicial system, the media and intelligence agencies, are fundamentally and unfairly rigged against him. That is why he calls for the dismantling of the “deep state” at his rallies, to great applause.

In Trump’s eyes, claiming that the American legal system is functioning properly is de facto a criticism of him. And anyone who criticizes him risks alienating both the former president and his large support base within the party. Many Republicans are reluctant to take such a step.

It is still too early to say whether this moment could escalate into a civil war among Republicans or whether Trump’s years of power over his party will ultimately nip any significant wave of opposition in the bud.

What is obvious, however, is how determined the Trump camp is to gain support.

Over the course of Donald Trump’s political career, there have been a handful of scandalous moments where there was a very real risk that he could lose his party’s support: the Access Hollywood tape, his impeachment hearings, his indictments, the FBI raid on his home – the list is endless.

So far, he seems to have managed to avoid his party’s most prominent politicians. However, the same may not apply to voters.

Earlier this month, an ABC News/IPSOS poll found that a fifth of Donald Trump’s supporters said they would either reconsider or withdraw their support for him if he were convicted of a crime.

At a time when presidential elections are ultimately decided by a few thousand voters in a few swing states, it remains to be seen whether this guilty verdict will ultimately make a difference.