Donald Trump’s conviction in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s “hush money” trial marks a solemn moment in American history, and not for the reasons liberals cite. In their false narrative now spinning furiously through newsrooms internet and soon to be deemed official history, Trump is finally being held to account for one of many unnamed crimes.

In truth, Trump has been made a martyr for a dying nation, once the freest in the world, as it hurtles toward tyranny.

The conviction of an opposition party candidate on baseless charges in a case orchestrated and controlled by partisan enemies is a new and shocking development in American politics. Every aspect of this case was improper, from the Democratic jury pool to the prosecution’s shifting theory of the crime.

The biased, corrupt judge, who is also a Biden donor, permitted the jury to disagree about what Trump actually did to violate the law. Prosecutors gave different narratives of the “unlawful means” in Trump’s supposedly nefarious bookkeeping scheme to cover up bad publicity during the 2016 election, which from their perspective he ought to have been forbidden from winning.

As always, Trump’s actual crime is being Trump. Bragg spent weeks poring over the salacious details of Trump’s personal life and dredging up old scandals, even inviting Stormy Daniels to imply to the jury that she was raped.

Trump supporters who held out hope for a hung jury—the best conceivable outcome for Trump in this garbage case—may have forgotten that 12 Angry Men is just a movie.

What we witnessed instead was a classic show trial, and a sordid one at that, with no clearly defined offense, a hostile judge, and predetermined outcome.

Democrats are gloating about the result behind the mask of fake solemnity and spouting self-righteous pieties about their devotion to the “rule of law.”

Would this case have been brought if Trump had simply retired from politics? The obvious answer is no.

Beneath all the sanctimony, the left knows we know what they’re up to. They don’t care. Trump must be held “accountable” for something, and so, they’ve decided this will be it—consequences for the country be damned.

While they try their best to legitimize the conviction, they cannot conceal the overpowering smell of corruption. Biden, too, seems unable to resist the temptation to exploit the situation.

The sitting president, who is faced with deservedly dim hopes of re-election, reacted with a sharply polemical and gratuitous statement trumpeting the verdict as maintaining the “rule of law,” and predictably painting Trump as a threat to “democracy.” Biden seemed to offer a preview of coming months sure to be filled with similar attacks on Trump as a “convicted felon.”

Even Biden seems aware of how compromising and political the situation looks. In the past, Biden hasn’t been shy about denouncing his enemies as threats to the nation in unhinged public speeches rife with authoritarian optics, like his Independence Hall speech, which unsettled even some liberals with its cozy fusion of state and partisan elements. Ahead of the Trump verdict, it was reported that Biden planned to speak at the White House, which would have continued that disconcerting pattern. Instead his reaction, so far and by his own Stalinist standards, has been measured.

In any event, Biden’s partisan response removes any doubt about the corrupt motives driving the trial, and the broader effort to damage Trump with the “felon” label.

While it’s doubtful many people will remember or care exactly what “convicted felon” Trump did to deserve that ignoble title—if they can even grasp it now, while it is still fresh—that fact does not detract from the injustice of the verdict and its grave implications for the rule of law. The conviction raises the stakes in 2024 dramatically: never has the threat of despotism been so distinctly drawn in an American election.

If it is any consolation to Trump backers, the desperation and shamelessness of the left’s conduct only ennobles Trump, and serves as a reminder that, to them, he is very much a threat.