Donald Trump has been convicted of 34 crimes for falsifying company records. But this is unlikely to make much difference to the Republican Party. Not only is he still the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee; Republicans have repeatedly proven that they are willing to forgive his indiscretions, no matter how serious.
To be fair, Trump’s position is not nearly as strong as the headlines suggest. In fact, his lead in the polls remains within the margin of error and in the ongoing Republican primaries he continues to lose 10-20% of the vote to Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race more than two months ago. Without the help of right-wing media like Fox News, third-party and independent candidates, dark money groups and Russian influence operations, Trump’s numbers would be much worse than they now appear.
Nevertheless, high-profile Republicans — including those who have sharply criticized Trump in the past — have done their utmost to get on the former president’s good side before November. We know their motivation is not “Make America Great Again” (MAGA), as Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan promised. So what’s going on?
