Hunter Biden has been convicted. Now what?
I haven’t written much about Hunter Biden’s criminal trial, because I haven’t expected it to impact the political landscape much. Now that he’s been convicted, I still don’t expect it to have much political impact. But it may change the way we end up talking about things. How so?
First, there are two key things to understand here. The first is that Hunter Biden is indeed guilty. The second is that he’s been singled out for selective prosecution. Almost no one gets indicted and tried solely for lying about being on drugs when buying a gun. If anything, this is a story about how gun control laws aren’t being properly enforced. It’s also a strong argument that anyone who wants to buy a gun should be tested for drugs, not simply asked if they’re on drugs.
But as far as the political landscape, what does this really change? The only people who are going to care about Hunter Biden’s conviction are the right wing Trump supporters who are already voting for Trump anyway. So they don’t count. When it comes to persuadable voters – the group that hasn’t decided whether to vote for Trump or stay home, and the other group that hasn’t decided whether to vote for Biden or stay home – it’s hard to imagine any of them caring about this.
Persuadable voters are not going to care that Joe Biden’s son was convicted on gun charges that obviously had nothing to do with the Biden presidency. But early polling suggests that some persuadable voters do care that Donald Trump himself was just convicted on felony criminal charges.
For all the endless media hype we’ll hear about how Hunter Biden’s conviction is going to change the election, I just don’t see it. All it’s going to end up doing is to cause one obligatory question to be asked about it per interview or debate. And we already know what President Biden’s answer is going to be: “I love and support my son but I’m not pardoning him.” And that’s where the story becomes a non-story.
