The degree of animosity that people have for Trump is actually somewhat of a mystery to me. I can't quite crack it. There's a class thing there, I would say. Elitist people are annoyed that someone like Trump or someone who they think Trump is has dared to enter the upper echelons. So there's something about it that's very classist. And Trump is a brash salesman-y character, right? I mean, he ran The Apprentice for years. He's a huckster. And I don't mean that in a denigrating way. I mean, part of what's made America great is its ability to sell. And the shadow side of the salesman is the huckster. And Trump straddles the line between salesman and huckster. And that also irritates, especially, anti-capitalist, elitist, leftist types. But that's not all. There's more. What is it? Is it Trump's rough edges? There's that. Is it his proclivity to bully, which he does and very effectively and sometimes very usefully? It's that. He's de-classé. And the elite types really hate that. They feel that he's contaminating their domain. It's something like that. But It's very mysterious, and there's multiple levels to it. And the Trump voters think, and rightly so, well, if they're going to persec the person I voted for and would like to vote for again, what's to stop them from persecuting me?

And that is a perfectly valid question. It's horrible. It's horrible. It's really bad. And I see it with no joy whatsoever. Look, one of the things that's terrible, this is terrible, is that trust in major institutions has been unbelievably weakened in the last five years. Many people don't trust the medical establishment. Many people don't trust the psychological community. Many people don't trust higher education or media or government or the judiciary. This is not good. Sociities where trust collapses become impoverished and imperiled. It's really bad. And that institutional trust is extremely difficult to develop and to maintain. It's the wealth of the West is really its high levels of trust and honesty. That's the fundamental natural resource. And much of that has been terribly compromised. And I believe that the major consequence of the Trump trial will be that another 30 % of Americans will lose faith in the judicial system.