Douglas Brinkley and the lesson of Trump's guilty verdict

Two years shy of this country's 250th birthday, 12 New York jurors have convicted former President Donald Trump on 34 counts for falsifying business records in an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

When the guilty verdicts were read this past week, America—in a tangible way—rechristened itself as a republic.

It was a sobering reminder that every American is precisely equal before the law.