I have a five random thoughts about the the unanimous verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case. In roughly ascending order of importance:

1. Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina is delusional if he thinks he’ll ever get paid.

2. Remember when Republicans went ballistic after Joe Biden touched some female shoulders? Good times.

3. Gosh, I guess that when you’re a “star,” like all the stars going back a million years, you can’t just “do it.”

4. There were three women on the jury. I guess he just wasn’t their type.

5. In 2008 there was talk that America might not be “ready” for a Black president, and in 2016 there was talk that America might not be “ready” for a woman president. The big question in 2024 might be whether America, in choosing a president, is ready for a convicted sexual abuser.

Let’s linger on the latter, because it’s a serious question.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the grassroots MAGA cultists are prepared to stand by their man-child and nominate him yet again for a job that comes with the nuclear codes. They’re impervious to rational factual argument; blind idolatry trumps common decency. Senator Tommy Tuberville, the ex-football coach and self-described “man of Christian faith,” says that the jury’s verdict against Trump “makes me want to vote for him twice.”

But if we set aside those brainwashed tens of millions, that still leaves us with a majority. Is that majority truly prepared to embarrass America on the world stage by helping to elect a predatory lowlife?

Maybe there’s hope. Some elected Republicans seem shaken by yesterday’s speedy verdict. For instance:

Senator Mike Rounds of red Montana said, “You never like to hear that a former president has been found in civil court guilty of those types of actions. I would have a difficult time” supporting such a person.

Senator Bill Cassidy of red Louisiana said, “You feel for Ms. Carroll. A woman should not be assaulted, end of story. Period. The fact that someone assaulted a woman in that way is reprehensible,” and that should be “consideration” for voters.

Senator John Thune of red South Dakota said that “people are gonna have to decide whether…they want to deal with all the drama that’s going to surround (Trump).”

Congressman Don Bacon of red Nebraska said, “I think we need to do better. If we don’t have the right person as our nominee for president, we will lose the White House again. We will lose the House majority and we will likely not pick up the Senate.”

Senator John Cornyn of red Texas said, “I don’t think (Trump) can get elected…The fact is that I do not think he can win the presidency regardless of what you think about him as an individual.”

I’d like to think that a convicted sexual abuser can’t get elected, if only because we’re six years into the #MeToo era and most Americans are arguably less tolerant of sexual abusers than ever before. Indeed, it was 2017 – the same year that women began to take down Harvey Weinstein – when the national Quinnipiac polling firm reported something quite astounding.

It posed this question: “As you may know, President Trump has been accused of sexual harassment by multiple women…He has denied all of the accusations. If it is proven true that President Trump sexually harassed this or any other woman, do you think he should be impeached and removed from office or not?”

The response: 61 percent said that he should ousted – including 59 percent of independents and 56 percent of men.

According to those stats, most Americans think it’s no longer cool to harass (or assault) women, and that anyone who does so is abusing the public trust. Most of us agree with Amanda Carpenter, a former aide to two Republican senators, who wrote in 2019 that “Sexual assault is, at its core, an abuse of power. Only a person full of entitlement and lecherous self-interest and devoid of morality preys on others in such a manner. Only someone who views women as vessels from which something gratifying can be gained, whatever the cost to their humanity. Someone who believes that some people’s lives matter less than others.”

So maybe, even for Trump, being a convicted sexual abuser is a deal-breaker. And his courtroom woes may well be much worse a year from now – what Senator Thune delicately calls “the ongoing drumbeat.” On the other hand, who knows what awaits us. Maybe low-information swing voters will be more upset about the price of eggs and Biden’s gait. To borrow a phrase from Martin Luther King, maybe the next election will make it clear to the world that Americans no longer care about “the content of their character.”

Are we ready to elect a convicted sexual abuser? The fact that I feel compelled to even entertain such a question is symptomatic of how noxiously ill this country has become.