05/31/2024

A Watershed Moment in American History

The Trump verdict will shape our politics in ways we can't yet see

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox.

There are moments in American history that we all know matter, even if we aren’t clear at the time about their weight. Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon. Republicans’ failed impeachment of Bill Clinton. George W. Bush’s Wall Street bailout. These moments turned out to be political inflection points, the impact of which are still being debated even now. Another such moment just took place in lower Manhattan.

Thursday’s decision by a dozen jurors to find former President Donald Trump guilty of 34 felony crimes is an era-defining event, but how it will shape the age remains entirely uncertain. After all, Ford’s pardon gave permission for Nixon’s apologists to adopt and amplify his win-at-any-cost politics. And the fallout from Clinton’s affair with an intern shaped the 2000 elections in ways big and small, perhaps even paving the way for Bush, whose extraordinary measures to save the economy in the final weeks of his presidency set into motion a reactionary movement that soon became known as the Tea Party.

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