"Unprecedented in the History of American Republicanism": Historian on Trump Verdict & GOP Extremism

In a historic verdict, a New York jury found former President Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts in his criminal hush money and election interference trial. Trump is now the first former president to be convicted of a felony and faces up to four years in prison. “All this is unprecedented in the history of American republicanism,” says U.S. historian Manisha Sinha. “A man like Trump could very much upend this over-200-year experiment in representative government.” Trump can still be president as a convicted felon and is poised to become the Republican nominee for the nation’s highest office in July. “One of the most dangerous things about Trump is that he’s not a one-man show,” says Sinha. “He’s the presumptive nominee of a political party in a two-party system. That in itself poses an immense danger to American democracy.”