The homepage of The New York Times announced the conviction of Donald Trump on 34 felony charges Thursday afternoon within the form of large-scale, black letter headline we typically associate with yellowed century-old newspapers declaring war has come. “TRUMP GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS,” it blared above a photograph of the previous president looking weary in some crowded public space.
Scrolling down the page somewhat, you’d have found a link to 1 story noting the historicity of this moment and a link to a different story detailing each of the 34 charges. Together on the homepage, the headline of the primary paired with a bulleted summary of the second made for a wierd juxtaposition: “Donald Trump has turn out to be America’s first felon president,” it said, and below that, a bulleted list: “11 counts related to invoices, 12 counts related to ledger entries, 11 counts related to checks.” Wait, invoices? This isn’t precisely the crime of the century.
And that highlights the core problem with probably the most common responses to this verdict in our political discourse: Among Trump’s antagonists and admirers alike, there’s an incredible deal of calling evil good and good evil (Isa. 5:20).
I doubt that is deliberate dissembling. The most animated reactions I’ve observed haven’t been calculated—quite the other, in actual fact. Outside the chattering class especially, those responses have looked like organic outbursts of elation and schadenfreude, or else indignation and resentment. On each side, I feel that the majority people sincerely see their reactions as stands for justice. But even with innocent motivation, it is a form of moral confusion.
Let’s start with Trump’s opponents, amongst whom there was great rejoicing when the decision dropped. But what, exactly, is the character of the crime? Unlike Trump’s Georgia indictment, which I find morally and legally compelling, the crimes of which Trump has been found guilty in New York are arcane and ethically unintuitive.
This case has been widely summarized as concerning payments Trump made to hide his affairs with two porn stars. That’s a part of it, but that’s not the crime, since it will not be illegal to have affairs with porn stars or to pay to maintain adulterous liaisons secret.
What Trump has actually been convicted of, in short, is violating a New York State law against falsifying business records to hide his willful violation of federal campaign finance law (in addition to another laws) that might have required him to reveal the multi-step payment process to cover the stories of the affairs in order that his 2016 presidential campaign wouldn’t be harmed by public knowledge of his infidelity.
The charges are felonies as a substitute of misdemeanors, as records falsification charges normally could be, since the falsification is speculated to have covered up one other crime—against the law for which Trump was never charged, let alone convicted.
If that strikes you as directly tortured and surprisingly mundane, you will not be alone in that instinct. When Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg first released the fees last yr, they were met with almost universally raised eyebrows among the many mainstream and even left-leaning legal commentariat.
Politico, hardly a pro-Trump rag, dubbed the whole thing a head-scratcher. CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria called it “a case of trying the best man for the incorrect crime.” Vox’s Andrew Prokop made an in depth case that, though Trump isn’t any “sterling adherent to the rule of law” (true), it is a politicized prosecution: a fishing expedition focused “on an obscure or technical matter” using a novel legal theory and spearheaded by an elected political opponent of the defendant.
I rehearse all that to say: This verdict doesn’t need to be called “good.” Maybe it’s technically legally correct—I don’t have the legal expertise to say. But even when that’s true, this conviction looks to be the results of a case motivated much more by political rivalry than an actual interest in justice and the rule of law.
We don’t know yet what Trump’s punishment might be (sentencing is scheduled for July 11), but within the unlikely event that he is definitely imprisoned for this nonviolent crime, a response of elation could be not only unseemly but unjust (Prov. 24:17, 1 Cor. 13:6).
Now let’s turn to Trump’s supporters. The former president has denied the allegations of adultery and concealment of that evil. But he previously admitted to at the least considered one of the payments on multiple occasions, and Rudy Giuliani also publicly discussed it when he was Trump’s lawyer. And given Trump’s very public history of commentary (and photoshoots) making his sexual proclivities known, his denials are questionable, to say the least.
Trump has spent many years each naturally attracting and deliberately crafting a fame as an “immoral, impure or greedy person” known for his lechery, “obscenity, silly talk,” and “coarse joking”—all things, it should go without saying, that “are improper for God’s holy people” (Eph. 5:3–5). Does anyone imagine his denials of the porn star affairs?
Frankly, I doubt even his most enthusiastic voters buy it. He is transparently not a person of excellent character. He will not be the form of man about whom these allegations seem implausible. I’m fortunate enough to know many such men, as I expect you might be. If the identical allegation were made against them, my response could be complete incredulity. I’d laugh. But Trump? His words say no, but his entire public character says yes. The whole thing is tawdry and shameful, and associating with it’s liable to deprave our character too (1 Cor. 15:33–34).
In short, it may perhaps be fair to say Trump is a victim of a certain injustice here, as many on the best have charged. Looking on the legal questions, I’m inclined to agree. But that doesn’t make him an embattled hero value following and defending. Examining Trump through an ethical lens, it needs to be vanishingly easy to say his life doesn’t need to be called “good.”
As Christians, in fact, we confess that “there is no such thing as a one who does good, not even one,” that “all have sinned and fall wanting the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that got here by Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:12, 23–24).
Looking at Trump’s travails—some undue but many wrought by his own hand—that confession should move us not a lot to elation or indignation, schadenfreude or resentment. It should move us to humility, to acknowledge that we aren’t any less in need of redemption. What good is it for somebody to realize a serious court victory and even the presidency, yet forfeit their soul?
Bonnie Kristian is the editorial director of ideas and books at Christianity Today.
