The conviction of President Donald Trump is a stark illumination of why he was first elected, why he was necessary, and why he persists as the central figure of our era. 

The nature of the conviction, to say nothing of the nature of the prosecution and trial, is fundamentally corrupt, and an offense against basic American principles. Here was a case that should never have seen the light of day, predicated upon a legal theory so preposterous that it could only have been credible to the most deeply partisan of prosecutors and judges. Yet that is exactly what we had: a prosecutorial apparatus that campaigned for office on the explicit promise of persecuting one man, and a judge who labored to facilitate a conviction through the weaponization of the justice system. Whatever we wish to call it, we cannot call it equal justice under law. 

Though some few have sought solace in the probability that the conviction will be overturned upon appeal, this offers little consolation. The mere fact of this episode is an indictment of the American system as it now exists—under progressive rule, more properly an un-American system—and in any case, who may repose confidence in the judiciary now? Everyone understands that the system of law is no law at all in vast swaths of the country: instead, it is a mechanism of punishment that identifies, fixes, and destroys political enemies for the benefit of the regime.

A Christian doesn’t wish to see his business exploited to legitimatize a form of marriage that is against his religious beliefs, and he is dragged through years of ruinous litigation. A citizen defends himself against an armed Black Lives Matter mob bent upon murder, and he is jailed. A good Samaritan defends his neighbors against a deranged criminal, and he is subjected to serious prosecution. Just this past week, a driver was caught on camera doing donuts that left tread marks on a crosswalk painted in LGBTQ colors, and local authorities have announced a search for the culprit: he will be prosecuted for “hate crimes.”

All this is meant to achieve a singular goal: to use the apparatus of the law and the judiciary to utterly break American opposition to the progressive regime by instilling a climate of fear so pervasive that Americans will no longer defend themselves, no longer defy leftist orthodoxy, and no longer dare to publicly disagree with the regime. Donald Trump was meant to be the biggest fish of the catch, the victim whose fate showed that absolutely no one is safe from the long arm of the Left, not even a president of the United States. 

But something went wrong—has already gone wrong—for the regime in what was supposed to be its moment of triumph. The president himself responded to his conviction with public equanimity and forthrightly called the political persecution what it is. Americans across the country responded. Donations flooded into the Trump campaign. Longtime opponents of Trump, at last recognizing the egregious insanity of the Left’s gambit, publicly declared themselves newly-minted Trump voters. The Left sought to make Trump a symbol, and it succeeded: but what he now symbolizes is America’s last best chance at reclaiming itself. 

This story isn’t over by a long shot. The sentencing for President Trump is set for July 11, right on the cusp of the convention that will nominate him for the third time as the Republican presidential choice. That is no accident, just as the timing of this trial was no accident. Some have suggested that the intent is to dare the Republicans to nominate a convicted felon, but those voices still haven’t grasped the monstrous ambition at work here. We should state the purpose plainly: the intent is to jail President Trump for the convention—and for the remainder of the 2024 election campaign. 

Those who think they wouldn’t dare, that there are prudential limits to their project, have to pay attention. The ideological movement that plunged the nation into insurrectionary violence in the summer of 2020, that believes the sexes are interchangeable and freely accessible, and that has remade American civics into a dangerous exercise in political caste has no limits. Having undertaken this project, they will pursue it to the hilt. Let us not be surprised. Let us be prepared. 

Preparation means many things, but one thing it means is that their lawfare must be met with ours. We don’t live in an equitable system when they’re in charge, so we must return the favor—not out of vengeance but out of self-preservation. Force is all they respect. One opportunity we have is on the Ohio general election ballot this fall. Thanks to the process incompetence of the Biden-run DNC, his formal nomination this summer comes too late for placement on the Ohio statewide ballot. No matter say the generous and pliable Republicans running Ohio: they’ll allow the DNC to stage a phony “virtual” convention before the real one, ensuring Biden’s presence on the Ohio ballot in November. 

This accommodation must stop. We will not last if we continue giving them the civics of comity while they give us the hard hand of lawfare. Let them live under the rules they impose upon us—upon ordinary Americans. 

Officeholders who call themselves conservatives must be compelled by their constituencies to fight back. Statements deploring the Left are irrelevant. It is time for action. There are numerous grounds for prosecution of a huge array of leftist figures, from Joe Biden to Hillary Clinton to BLM rioters to Palestinian partisans and beyond. Bring those charges. Deny ballot access. Launch open-ended investigations. Kill institutional funding. Seek examples to be made. It sounds awful, and it is—but this is the world they’ve made for us. We have no option but to bring them to live in it as well. 

Nearly a decade ago, Donald Trump erupted onto the center stage of American politics because he grasped all of this—well before institutional conservatism ever did. Now he is something more than just a champion: he is also a martyr. What remains is to educate the other side on just how powerful martyrdom can be.