Lessons from the lunchroom could help the former president understand that sooner or later, outlaw glamour wears off.

Follow this authorTheodore R. Johnson's opinions

For a jury of Trump’s peers last week, he crossed that line. But will getting caught and punished simply improve his political fortunes? Or will he get away with it, becoming president again? Trump paid no political penalty for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on U.S. Capitol, despite being impeached (for a second time). A third of Republicans in one survey said the felony convictions make them more likely to vote for him; guilt made no difference to another 56 percent. He is scheduled to be sentenced in July, and days later he is expected to be nominated for a third time at the top of the GOP ticket. Not only has bad publicity proved beneficial for him, Trump has made a political market in the art of getting caught.

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Voters will soon have their say. Toxic partisan politics is making a nation complicit in the illicit, willing to excuse all kinds of bad behavior just so one’s preferred candidate wins the election. Trump’s easy victories in the primaries and his lead in some respected polls together suggest that many voters (and thus potentially our system of government) are okay with a twice-impeached former president, freshly convicted of felonies, returning to the White House.

My classmates and I enjoyed recalling the lunchtime trades that landed us more of the world’s best pizza. And how friendships with the cafeteria staff sometimes earned an extra helping on the house. We admired those among us with good business sense and extra money for candy. But the consensus held that bragging about one’s success was bad form. And gloating about being untouchable was a bad omen. It was one thing to be a good dealmaker. It was quite another to make a sucker of someone. Penny-pinching adolescents recognize such distinctions, and a jury of New Yorkers did, too.

In 2016, Trump famously said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” He has proved that he could exploit the birtherism........

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