Donald Trump will take the office on 20 January 2025 as a convicted felon. On Thursday night, a sharply divided US supreme court declined to ride to his last-minute rescue. In a one-paragraph order, the majority refused to stay his state court sentencing whose genesis lay with payments that Trump allegedly arranged to cover up his purported affair with the adult film actor Stormy Daniels. Last May, a Manhattan jury unanimously found the 45th president guilty of 34 counts of conspiracy and fraud. The supreme court order may also be a harbinger of what awaits the US over the next