Editor’s note: I’m back from my week in Jamaica. Ask me how it was! I returned right when the former president was convicted of 34 felonies. Today’s edition is a bit of a scramble to catch up, but expect more on his conviction in the coming days. Meanwhile, thanks to everyone who supported my trip abroad. I relaxed like I have never relaxed before. I’m serious! And many thanks to subscribers who added to the tip jar. All tips went to eating my way across the island. Thank you! — JS

As you know, one of my mantras is that most people most of the time have something better to do than pay attention to politics. That goes double for criminal prosecutions. Despite the press corps’ focus on Donald Trump’s trial, most people most of the time did not focus on it. They would pay attention in the end, and in the end, he was found guilty 34 times.

That most people most of the time do not pay attention to politics can be to Trump’s advantage. He and his allies can lie about the prosecutor, they can lie about the judge, they can lie about Joe Biden’s role, and with those lies, they can win over some people, because those people don’t have a base of knowledge that comes with paying attention. 

But I think it’s important to say that this fundamental structure – that most people most of the time do not pay attention – can work against Trump at least as much as it can work for him. They did not pay attention to Trump’s criminal trail, because, above and beyond everything else, they have a basic institutional faith in the rule of law. If a jury of Trump’s peers found him guilty, well, he’s probably guilty, and because he’s guilty, he has no place being president for a second time.

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I also think it’s important to point out that Trump and the Republicans know all this. They know most people don’t pay attention, and that only the most dramatic headlines, usually about partisan conflict, are going to snap them into focus. They know about the basic institutional faith in the rule of law.

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This does not mean Trump and his allies will stop lying. They can’t. Lying is practical. His conviction is a fact. It’s not going away. So they must lie, and their lies – about the prosecutor, about the judge, about the president’s role in it – will get more and more fantastical. Count on that. The more fantastical they get, the more they might affirm for a lot of people they were right to maintain their faith in the rule of law.

I think this would be the case even if Trump were found not guilty. Most people most of the time, on the basis of their institutional faith in the rule of law, wouldn’t give his acquittal too much thought. They might not like it. They might even hate it. But they wouldn’t spend time trying to understand its complexities. They’d accept it, even if they also had serious doubts about their institutional faith in the rule of law. 

I also think it’s important to point out that Trump and the Republicans know all this. They know most people don’t pay attention, and that only the most dramatic headlines, usually about partisan conflict, are going to snap them into focus. They know about the basic institutional faith in the rule of law. This is why they made a big deal about the US Senate twice acquitting Trump. They knew most people would not pay attention until the very end, and in the end, he was found not guilty. They knew about basic institutional faith as well as indifference to politics. The trick was making sure they were on the right side of both. 

They also know that today’s headlines, like those in the above image, are going to hurt Trump and the Republicans, no matter what they’re saying now. It’s going to hurt, not only because these headlines give his opponent a history-making advantage, but also because so many people have a basic institutional faith in the rule of law. If Biden says a convicted felon has no place in the White House, lots of people would have to go to extraordinary lengths to find reasons why he’s wrong. 

I’m not talking about Trump’s loyalest supporters. They don’t need reasons beyond their führer. I’m talking about respectable white people, that great globular middle of American politics. Swing voters tend to believe they stand above politics. (That’s why so many of them don’t pay attention.) They are also the most likely to maintain a basic institutional faith in the rule of law, because it works in the interest of maintaining their privilege in the existing order of things. If Trump and the Republicans want to win over respectable white people, their lies will have to be not only extraordinary but extraordinarily believable.

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They will succeed, to a degree. I have no doubt about that. Neither should you. A lot of these respectable white people will believe their lies, because it’s in their interest to believe them. They will also find some of the lies believable, because they consume just enough of the rightwing media apparatus, which is now in the business of providing “reasons” for people to overlook Trump’s felony conviction. The trial was rigged. The prosecutor was biased. The judge was conflicted. Joe Biden is behind it all. All lies. But a lot of people want to be lied to. 

However, a lot of respectable white people don’t want to be lied to. They don’t believe the lies, because they haven’t been paying attention to the trial, except for the end, and they have a basic institutional faith in the rule of law. If a jury thinks he’s guilty, then he’s probably guilty. The lies have to be huge to overcome not only basic institutional faith in the rule of law but also a general indifference to politics, and in the process, those gigantic lies may end up looking like what they are.

I’m not naive. Lies are powerful. To succeed, they need just enough people in just enough places in this country to believe them on Election Day. But it’s too easy to say Trump’s felony conviction won’t matter. It matters, at the very least because it forces swing voters to reach for extraordinary reasons to support a convicted felon for president, and it forces Trump and his allies to tell bigger, more conspicuous lies.