“He’s a symbol of fighting back against this government corruption, the deep state, the bureaucracy and all the rest.”--Mike Johnson
The key word in Johnson's quote is 'symbol'. He may be that for a lot of people, but he's a symbol like the confederate flag is a symbol--representing a fantasy of revenge and resentment. Trump isn't the problem. There will always be thugs, grifters, and sociopaths among us. The real problem lies with the broad swath of Americans--people like Mike Johnson--for whom he symbolizes a better American future.
Everything Trump and people like Johnson have said about this trial being a disgraceful, corrupt weaponization of the Justice system is exactly how Trump used the Justice System against Michael Cohen. And yet Trump, of course, doesn't believe that he should be convicted of crimes that Michael Cohen committed on his behalf. In the end, that's all this trial was about. And the jury had common sense enough to see the obvious. He thinks the jury was biased, but the truth is that the only positive outcome for him would have been if there were a holdout juror who was unreasonably biased in his favor.
Trump isn't really complaining about a rigged system. He wants a rigged system, just rigged to benefit him, which it largely has been. Trump and the MAGA world see him as the victim here, but reallyhe’s got silk-glove treatment, especially from the Feds. Trump was indicted by the Manhattan D.A. because the Feds under both Barr and Garland wouldn't go after him on hush money, and Garland wouldn’t even go after him on J6 until after the Congressional hearings forced him to. The Federal Justice system has done everything it could to "rig" things to benefit Trump in ways it would not have for anyone else.
If we lived in a world where certain people did not get special treatment from the legal system, Trump would go to jail just as Michael Cohen did and serve even more time because unlike Cohen, he’s the criminal ringleader, he’s unremorseful, and he was charged with 10 counts of contempt. But it’s unlikely he will go to prison because the system is indeed rigged in favor of people like him.
Bottom line. This was not a political psersecution. He was obviously, overwhelmingly guilty. Bragg would have been political if he hadn't indicted him. The politically motivated actors in the justice system are all on the federal level--in Florida, in the Supreme Court, and even in Garland's Justice Dept. Garland's desire not to look political was political in a way that ultimately favored Trump.
Anybody who feels sorry for Trump just doesn't see him for who he is. The most charitable thing we can say about him that he is a deeply troubled man who was traumatized by a sociopathic father. The MAGA world talks about how his enemies have Trump Derangement Syndrome, but as with most things MAGA, it's all projection. It's they who in projecting all their fears and frustrations onto a deeply morally corrupted and often unhinged human being who has committed more crimes than he will ever be held accountable for. It is they who suffer a form of derangement, not the people who see him for the unfit monster that he is.