Now that the first Donald Trump criminal trial is reaching its end, I find myself wondering what its conclusion will mean for the upcoming presidential election. There’s been a lot of conversation about what will happen in the event of a Trump conviction, but nothing about the other possible outcome: What if the jury returns a verdict of not guilty?

And that’s when I started to panic.

I hadn’t really considered the peril of a failed prosecution when Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg first announced charges against Trump related to the Stormy Daniels hush money scheme. Trump trials tend to pop up so often, and in so many different contexts, that they have the feel of a long-running soap opera recycling the same tired storylines.

This trial, though, is the first time Trump has faced potential incarceration. What was once another episode of shabby daytime TV has been elevated to primetime. It’s the perfect venue for Trump’s daily post-court stemwinders in which he paws through his stack of favorable articles about himself, waves his hands, and raves about whatever subject crosses the sundowning sack of gray putty marinating above his shoulder pads.

What happens on the day he shambles out of that courthouse after an........

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