That’s a quote from an article in the New Yorker about people who are sticking with Trump even though he’s a convicted criminal. I love the fact that he cites Tony Soprano, the ridiculously fucked-up, penny ante, murderous gangster. It fits but I didn’t think anyone would want such a fool to run the United States of America. I don’t think it’s any accident that he didn’t pick a more standard right wing anti-hero like Dirty Harry. He was a cop and they’re not really sure about them anymore. Best go with the straight-up mobsters. These people don’t actually want a “shock to the system.” They just want somebody to punish their enemies, period. And that’s you. And me. Amanda Marcotte had a great piece the other day on this subject: As the trial progressed, Trump escalated far beyond his tired litany of claims that everything was “rigged” against him, though he kept that pattern up. He’s been experimenting by trying to cast himself as a rakish outlaw. He wants voters to imagine his crimes are about standing up to a corrupt system. In reality, he is corruption embodied; a man who has never acted on anything but self-interest and who only evades justice by paying people off, usually in promised (if infrequently actualized) political favors. “Trump Leans Into an Outlaw Image as His Criminal Trial Concludes,” read a New York Times headline on Tuesday. In it, reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonah Bromwich outlined how Trump was laying the groundwork, pre-verdict,…