Trump trial: From roads to social media, home county breaks along party lines over verdict

PALM BEACH — In Palm Beach County, Donald Trump's home, supporters and critics faced off on street corners and social media following the former president's conviction on Thursday.

About a dozen people stood along a roadside parking strip along Southern Boulevard between Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach and the county mainland, waving flags and holding up competing signs. Commuters whizzing by honking in support or against them.

“Guilty! Guilty! Guilty” one man chanted. “You should be ashamed of yourselves,” another yelled as he drove by.

Enraged over Trump’s conviction, 60-year-old hedge fund worker Debbie Macchia, a Republican from Boynton Beach, joined friends to fly giant Trump flags, including one saying “LOCK & LOAD,” with two revolver pistols.

Macchia said she felt “flabbergasted” and “confused” by the verdict.

"What was the crime?” she asked.

More: Trump convicted on all 34 counts. Can a convicted felon run for president?

New York trial: Trump guilty on all charges. Read reaction from across Florida.

When a reporter started to explain that Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records to hide a campaign cash payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to stop her from revealing their affair before the 2016 election, she interrupted.

“He paid legal fees (to attorney Michael Cohen) to do legal work for him!" she retorted. "Nice try.”

When an anti-Trump driver slowed down to yell, “F*** Trump!” Macchia replied, “Go to Gaza! I hope they murder you there!” as her friends nodded and cheered.

Across the street, an anti-Trump demonstrator from Palm Beach, Luke Waterman, held a homemade “LOCK HIM UP” sign, a dig at the Trump's rallygoers chant against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. He smiled at Macchiato and her friends.

“I don’t like that they’re the only ones out here,” he said.

But Waterman said he didn’t think Trump should be locked up for the crimes for which he was found guilty.

“It’s just the phrase they shouted at Hillary,” he said.

Partisan response to a 'somber verdict,' sad moment in U.S. history

Reactions from Palm Beach County political leaders were sharply divided along partisan lines.

Republican Congressman Brian Mast, whose district includes communities in the northern part of the county, said on X, formerly Twitter, that "America's judicial system was Killed In Action tonight."

Hours before the jury came to its decision, Trump's daughter-in-law, Republican National Committee vice chair and Jupiter resident Lara Trump, insisted in a defiant social media post that "no matter what witch hunts and lawfare the Left throws against President Trump, he will never stop fighting for the American people!"

Outspoken Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said the verdict was reasonable and pointed to the "strong case" against Trump.

“The prosecution put on a strong case, and the jury followed the evidence and the law,” he said. “Michael Cohen was a key witness for the State, and despite his flaws, there was ample corroboration for his testimony.”

State Sen. Lori Berman, a Palm Beach County Democrat, raised the question of whether Trump, as a convicted felon, now can cast a vote in Florida since state law disenfranchises convicted felons.

Berman also called attention to Amendment 4 passed in 2018, which is aimed to restore voting rights to the state’s convicted felons. It “represented one of the biggest voting rights victories in recent history. Then, Florida Republicans gutted it. Now, Trump can’t vote in his own home state. Call it poetic justice,” she wrote.

But in Florida, where Trump is registered to vote, felons have the right to vote if the state where they were convicted, in this case New York, allows it. New York only removes a felon’s right to vote while they are imprisoned, and as Trump may not receive jail time at all, let alone before the election, he likely will remain eligible.

Also, a Florida Attorney General’s advisory opinion from 1977 suggests Trump can vote, at least until he runs out of appeals. As of Thursday night, Trump's legal team has not said whether they will appeal the verdict.

“A felon … is not ‘convicted’ within the meaning of the constitutional disqualification from voting while an appeal from such conviction is pending or while the time for an appeal from the judgment or sentence has not yet expired,” stated the opinion, written by Pat Gleason, now the office’s special counsel for open government.

Democrat Lois Frankel, who represents a Palm Beach County district that includes Trump's Mar-a-Lago, spoke somberly of the moment.

“Putting politics aside, this is a somber verdict that speaks to the fact that for our democracy to work, no person should be above the law,” she wrote.

Palm Beach Post reporter Hannah Phillips and Jim Rosica of the USA Today Florida Network contributed to this story.

Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at [email protected]. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Trump trial: In Palm Beach County, anger, vindication over conviction