many Americans had a different impression of the Trump verdict: that his conviction was proof of corruption, not justice. And while a snap poll showed that 54 percent of registered voters "strongly" or "somewhat" approved of the guilty verdict, more than a third of voters said they "strongly" or "somewhat" disapproved.
Meanwhile, as media analysts were busy celebrating the verdict, with ABC's chief White House correspondent calling it a "political gift to Democrats," searches for "donate to Trump" spiked on Google. So many people were rushing to Trump's fundraising page that the site temporarily crashed. By the next morning, his campaign announced that nearly $35 million had poured in overnight--almost 30 percent of which appeared to come from first-time Trump donors. By late Friday, the campaign stated that the total had climbed to nearly $53 million.
Who are these sudden supporters? We wanted to find out. Here, seven people tell us how they made the journey from Never Trump to Trump Now.
Shaun Maguire: "The Republican Party is less of a danger to democracy than the Democratic Party right now."
Maguire, 38, is a Los Angeles--based partner at Sequoia, one of the most well-known venture capital firms in the country. He previously worked at Google, but left in 2019 when he says the company became too "woke." The married father of two says he's never voted for a Republican presidential candidate before. In 2016, he donated to Hillary Clinton's campaign. But within an hour after Thursday's news, Maguire posted on X that he'd donated $300,000 to Trump--a candidate he says once made him feel "deathly afraid."
In a 3,500-word essay, he listed his reasons for backing the ex-president, including the Biden administration's "incompetent" withdrawal from Afghanistan, but the main reason that "boiled my blood," he wrote, was "the double standards and lawfare that Trump has faced." The tweet quickly went viral and elicited a response from Elon Musk, who wrote in the replies, "I think you're right."
Speaking to The Free Press, Maguire said Trump's conviction "makes me want to support him even more." But, he added, "it wasn't the conviction as much as it was the charges being brought in the first place. These are not democratic tactics being used.
"In 2016, I thought it was likely that Trump was both owned by Russia and that he would be highly corrupt and undemocratic. That made me deathly afraid. But after seeing his actions as president, that foreign influence never seemed to have materialized. I think he was one of the strongest foreign policy presidents we've ever had.
"We were told that Donald Trump would be the end of democracy, but it turns out that lawfare tactics have been escalated by the Democrats and not by the Republicans. And so it's from that backdrop that I believe the Republican Party is less of a danger to democracy than the Democratic Party right now."
On announcing his support for Trump publicly, Maguire said, "I feel very principled. I've done an unbelievable amount of homework and I changed my mind."
He added that he's seen a similar political "shift" happening among his Silicon Valley compatriots, a sentiment that's also being echoed on social media. Even so, he said his own change of heart has surprised many close to him, even himself: "The 2016 version of myself would have hated this version of myself."
They're Voting for Trump to Save 'Democracy
Kate Nitti: "I feel the need to send a message to the Democrats."'
Kate Nitti, 40, is a marketing consultant and a married mother of two now living in New Jersey. A lifelong Democrat, she said she voted solely for her party's representatives for more than twenty years when she still lived in Brooklyn. But then, in 2021, she marked her ballot for a Republican for the first time--Curtis Sliwa, the GOP candidate for NYC mayor--to protest how Democrats had "abused their power" during Covid with school lockdowns, and vaccine and mask mandates for kids.
In 2022, she voted for Republican Lee Zeldin for New York governor, and she even switched her party registration from Democrat to Republican "in the hopes of getting a more centrist candidate" in the midterm primaries that year.
Although until recently she had been firmly in the RFK Jr. camp, she said she would consider voting for Trump because "I feel the need to send a message to the Democrats that their dirty politics will not be rewarded."
With Trump facing a fine, probation, or four years in prison for each of the 34 counts he's been convicted of, "I'm definitely going to be paying close attention to the response to this case over the next few months," she said.
"I'm no fan of Trump. That said, I have a huge problem with contorting the law or using prosecutorial authority in the name of 'saving democracy,' which has been the Democrats' message for the past four years."
"I still consider myself a liberal," she added. "I just don't think Biden Democrats reflect what that used to mean."
The Washington Post reports two polls showing that a frighteningly thin majority -- or mere plurality -- oppose sending the current front-running presidential candidate to prison.
A Reuters-Ipsos poll shows Americans oppose a prison sentence 51 percent to 46 percent.
A CBS News-YouGov poll shows Americans oppose it 45 to 38 percent.
A significant number of Americans who approve of the Manhattan trial feel this way. For instance, in the CBS poll, Americans said that the trial was fair, 56 to 44 percent, and that the verdict was correct, 57-43. So Americans believe in the trial and outcome by double digits, but they still lean against prison time.
Via Karen Armstrong, this will increase your blood pressure, so avoid it if your blood pressure is already high.
Stephanoplous whines that Trump led chants of "Lock her up," without acknowledging that Trump didn't take any action in that regard. Indeed, just a day after the election, Trump stated he would not seek to jail Hillary Clinton.
That could change. That could change.