\n\n“No matter what happens in the courtroom in Manhattan in the coming days, weeks and months, no matter what is revealed, no matter the evidence or even the outcome, say longtime Trump watchers, former Trump employees, Republican strategists and operatives and experts on political rhetoric and autocratic means, his supporters at this point don\u2019t care who he was or was not. \u201cIt\u2019s irrelevant to who he is now and what he\u2019s become,\u201d Trump biographer Tim O\u2019Brien told me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTrump\u2019s rise in the American imagination rested on his appeal as an entrepreneurial guru and carnival barker. He has long since transitioned away from that role with his most loyal followers,\u201d O\u2019Brien wrote in his column<\/a> for Bloomberg on Monday. The far more pertinent persona is the one he\u2019s crafted since the summer of 2015. \u201cHe is an era-defining politician now, and he oversees a cult that cares little about his business foibles or setbacks \u2026\u201d Trump, after all, is \u201cnot<\/em> an ex-president \u2014 he\u2019s a right-wing, nativist, revolutionary leader,\u201d as presidential historian Doug Brinkley once put it<\/a>. \u201cHe has a movement that is massive with global implications \u2026\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Trump could be fined $250 million. He could lose Trump Tower<\/a>, the singular symbol of the image he sought from the start to convey. For most people, of course, unsavory aspects of their past can limit their prospects for the future. Not for Trump. Never have. He is, in the memorable words of an intimate<\/a>, \u201cthe most present human being I ever met.\u201d So the scenes this week are in some sense simply an extension of a time-tested Trump tactic and truth. He makes the past not matter.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Last week, in a memo written<\/a> by Club for Growth president David McIntosh to a Club-linked PAC called<\/a> Win it Back, the takeaway was stark<\/a>: Trump\u2019s supporters do not care what he did or what he said before. They like him still. They like him now. \u201cIt is amazing,\u201d McIntosh told me in a text. \u201cAll attempts to undermine his conservative credentials on specific issues were ineffective,\u201d the memo said. \u201cEven when you show video to Republican primary voters with complete context of President Trump saying something otherwise objectionable to primary voters, they find a way to rationalize and dismiss it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat I saw there that really stood out to me was that people dismissed any negative information about Donald Trump as just another attack on Donald Trump,\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n