When politicians are investigated for alleged crimes, even arrested or charged, there's a temptation to think their career is over.
And if they're convicted of a crime, there has been an assumption that surely the public would not trust them now.
But for Donald Trump, his conviction in the hush money trial in New York really just gives him another line to help push the conspiracy therory he has been promoting to his supporters all along.
For the better part of 10 years, Trump has been telling his base America's institutions are out to get him.
That he needed to drain the swamp.
That they needed to stop the steal.
And for some people who — rightly or wrongly — feel they too have been hard done by and pushed down by a system, that is a very powerful message.
His guilty verdict is perhaps the most potent political weapon he now has to continue making the claim that things are stacked against him.
His most devoted supporters will not question the statement he made outside court on Friday that: "This was a disgrace, this was a rigged trial."
"The real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people and they know what happened here."
Outside the same court last year, as the first criminal indictment to name a former United States president was unsealed, his supporters were already calling this a "witch-hunt".
Trying to really interrogate that statement with several of those supporters taught me that there was no room left for logic because there was something more emotional at play.
There was no belief that Trump would be considered innocent until proven guilty, no thought given to the team of powerful lawyers he would be able to afford, no mind paid to the fact this gave their man an opportunity to settle the issue once and for all.
For those people who had travelled to be there, they already believed Trump would be found guilty, but not that he was guilty.
For years, Trump had been laying the foundations.
He had built a fortress around himself in the eyes of his most loyal supporters by tearing down the credibility of the American institutions that might be able to hold him accountable.
And it's the way he makes them feel that allowed him to do that.
A Donald Trump voter is many things
There is a difference between a rusted-on Republican who voted for that party's candidate because that's what they've always done, and a Donald Trump supporter who got the man's face tattooed on their body.
In 2020, more than 74,200,000 people voted for Trump. There is no way that group is a monolith.
Among that massive cohort are all different types of people, with different life experiences and different reasons for their vote.
There are people who have always voted Republican, who believe in small government and the right to homeschool their children. They're politically motivated enough to get out and vote.
Maybe they don't like Trump's personality, but they can separate that from his politics.
For some, though, a vote for Trump was the first time they ever voted Republican.
Their vote for the GOP has only ever been about him and they would leave the party if Trump did.
Standing in downtown Detroit just days after the 2020 election at a Stop the Steal rally, I met a man who explained that he knew the depth of his feeling for Trump was that he loved him.
A former manufacturing worker from the Midwest where so many factories have closed over recent decades, this man had now found belonging in a Trump crowd.
To him, Trump was an aspirational character, wealthy and willing to say what other politicians won't.
Flawed just like him, a belief that he'd been pushed down by the system, just like him.
Even though Trump was reportedly a millionaire by the age of eight.
On Friday, at an impromptu Trump car rally in West Palm Beach, Florida, the former president's supporters talked of feeling a sense of sadness.
"At the end of the day, it's only going to increase his support," one man said.
His partner: "It's very scary. If it can happen to him, it can happen to any of us."
Trump's "super supporters" will not be deterred by his conviction, but he needs every possible vote to get over the line in November, and being a felon is likely to impact some of the other voter groups.
Those who might be swayed
The pollsters will be busy putting surveys into the field that take stock of sentiment towards Trump now there is a verdict.
In the lead-up to Friday, there were a few notable polls that had tried to forecast what the impact might be.
Bearing in mind Americans don't have to vote, that the number of undecided voters is diminishing and that the hush money case is considered to be less serious than Trump's other indictments.
But some polls still predict there will be an impact at the margins.
Several polls that surveyed Republican voters on whether they would still vote for Trump if he was convicted in the New York case found that between 4–6 per cent of respondents said they would change their mind.
An NPR/PBS poll found 67 per cent of all registered voters said a conviction would make no difference to how they vote in November.
In the same poll, 25 per cent of Republican voters said they would be more likely to vote for Trump if he was found guilty.
"The latest poll also asked voters whether Trump being acquitted would affect their vote preference. A large majority — 76 per cent — seemed to see a not-guilty verdict as keeping the status quo, saying that outcome would make no difference to them on election day," US public broadcaster PBS published.
The trial was not televised and hardly revealed anything Americans didn't already know about Trump.
There are still questions about how his non-core supporters will be affected, but perhaps even more relevant ones about how this outcome will motivate his base.
Because for all the times Trump has said the system is rigged against him, what he has been implying to his faithful supporters is "I know it's rigged against you too".
As the campaigns come into focus over the next few months, expect to hear the words "rigged trial" a lot.
Just moments after his guilty verdict came down, Trump's campaign donation page was splashed with new, yet familiar, lines about a "rigged political witch-hunt" and being a "political prisoner".
He called on 10 million people to make donations as the site struggled under the weight of heavy traffic.
It's a reminder of the mugshot merchandise Trump's team sold with the slogan "never surrender" running alongside the image taken as he turned himself into Georgia's Fulton Country Jail in August.
Authority coming after Trump is an opportunity for his campaign.
Even if by spinning a false narrative, Trump can emerge as the candidate who knows what it's like to be dealt an injustice.
It might not be true, or logical at all, but it is a very strong emotional connection that compels people to give him their money, wear his merchandise, travel across the country to be at his rallies and, no doubt, cast their vote for him come November.
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