Wild levels of slippery slope reasoning. By this logic, even if a politician is guilty of a crime, we shouldn't ever prosecute them because of the implication it might create.
I also hate this assumption that the jury was crooked because they are from Manhattan. They are normal citizens trying to do their civic duty. The majority are professionals who were court ordered to appear and do this thing. In my experience in litigation, the jury process tends to impart the seriousness of the situation and most people rise to those occasions when the rubber meets the road and truly put their biases aside in those moments.
Even if you assume that everyone is just a political grifter who wants to side with their party, about 25% of people in Manhattan voted for Trump in 2020. There are EXTREMELY good odds that multiple members of that jury were Trump voters.
Ordinarily, I would agree you can count on a jury to take things somewhat seriously. But we should probably consider some external factors in a situation like this.
1) Donald is Donald. Probably the most polarizing political figure in living memory.
In 2020, 12.8%, not 25%, of New York County (Manhattan) voted for Donald. So the likelihood of multiple Trump voters on the jury is pretty low, particularly when you account for turnout. If this trial was in Staten Island or Queens, that would have been much better optics.
2) the jury have friends, family, coworkers. It's safe to say a majority of them would convict Donald of just about anything. Potentially and probably lots of external pressure to convicted.
3) he's gonna get what? Probation? Makes it easy for holdouts to wash their hands and say "no harm, no foul."
4) the judge was problematic to say the least from everything I read/listened to (I listen or read anything to the right of Larry Tribe).