I first visited Trump Tower in Manhattan about 20 years. Donald Trump’s reality show, The Apprentice, was one of the most popular programs on TV at the time. Although I’d never watched the show, it was impossible to be unaware of the Trump persona at that time – a glitzy American billionaire and media gadfly. I remember being distinctly unimpressed by the lobby of Trump Tower. As I recall, it had a few retail stores and restaurants, but lacked the true glamour and architectural beauty that I’d seen earlier that day at nearby Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall.

It was that lobby at Trump Tower a decade or so later where Trump would launch his 2016 presidential campaign. And Trump returned to the lobby again yesterday to launch a half-hour diatribe about his just-completed trial in which he was found guilty of 34 felony charges related to hush-money paid to an adult film actress, just before the 2016 election, so she wouldn’t go public with details of an alleged sexual encounter she had with Trump years earlier.

If you’ve ever been to or walked by Trump Tower, you know it’s on Fifth Avenue. And whenever I’m in New York and strolling along Fifth Avenue – I was there again just a few weeks ago – I always remember one of Trump’s most famous and prescient quotes.

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” Trump said back in 2016. “It’s, like, incredible.”

Trump has always understood the mindset of his core supporters, long before any media pundits and political scientists could dive into the psyche of Americans who stand by their man despite criminal indictments, impeachments and countless other personal and business scandals.

The hours after the guilty verdict in his hush-money trial has seemingly proved that Trump is once again right about his ability to keep voters. His campaign team reported a record fund-raising day on Friday.

Why do people still support Trump and other politicians with obvious personal flaws?

Minutes after the guilty verdict, we published a great article by marketing researchers Eugene Y. Chan of Toronto Metropolitan University and Ali Gohary of La Trobe University who say the reasons for such blind support is part of a cognitive process called “moral decoupling.”

This is just one of several Trump verdict stories our network has published over the last few days. For your weekend reading, I’ve assembled many of them – as well as a personal favourite of mine from our archives that talks about how the “rule of law” has impacted politics over the decades.

Have a great weekend. We’ll be back in your Inbox on Monday.

Scott White

CEO | Editor-in-Chief

Weekend Reads: Trump the convicted felon

Trump found guilty in hush money trial, but will it hurt him in the polls? Here’s why voters often overlook the ethical failings of politicians

Eugene Y. Chan, Toronto Metropolitan University; Ali Gohary, La Trobe University

Donald Trump has been found guilty for falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments made prior to the 2016 U.S. election. He’s now a convicted felon. Does that matter to his followers?

The intersectionality of hate helps us understand the ideology of Donald Trump and the far right

Francis Dupuis-Déri, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

The intersectionality of hate, which combines racism, antisemitism and misogyny, leads the white heterosexual male to believe that he is a victim of the “minorities” he must resist.

Trump guilty verdict: the fallout for US democracy

Dafydd Townley, University of Portsmouth

Donald Trump’s consistent attacks on the US justice system may have done significant damage.

Trump’s guilty verdict is not the end of the matter

Donald Nieman, Binghamton University, State University of New York

By focusing on the facts, the public can avoid being distracted by baseless allegations about the Trump verdict that undermine institutions designed to ensure – not weaponize – justice.

Trump found guilty: 5 key aspects of the trial explained by a law professor

Gabriel J. Chin, University of California, Davis

The New York conviction of Trump is unlikely to end the legal saga, which could quickly be appealed and possibly rise to the level of the US Supreme Court.

The ‘Dark Triad’ and Donald Trump: What sends some to the C-suite and others to prison

Bill Danielsen, Royal Roads University

Is Donald Trump the poster boy for the Dark Triad personality type? Or will his social bonds — if he has any — save him, and the world, from his worst instincts.

Descartes and the deep state: what 17th-century philosophy reveals about Trump and QAnon

Taylor Matthews, University of Southampton

Ideas used by conspiracy theorists hark back to those of 17th-century philosophers such as René Descartes.

What can we learn from the history of pre-war Germany to the atmosphere today in the U.S.?

David Dyzenhaus, University of Toronto

Adolf Hitler’s rise to power was aided by courts and lawyers in pre-war Germany. A similar situation exists today in the United States.

Weekend Listens

As war rages in Sudan, community resistance groups sustain life

Vinita Srivastava, The Conversation

In Sudan, amid a growing humanitarian crisis caused by a year-long and ongoing war, neighbourhood organizations have stepped in as first responders, and to lead the call for peace.

Breakthroughs and setbacks on the hunt for a universal snakebite antivenom – podcast

Gemma Ware, The Conversation

Snake venom experts Stuart Ainsworth and Christoffer Sørensen talk to The Conversation Weekly podcast about the search for an antivenom that could neutralise toxins from multiple different snakes.