Further insights to what the actual crime was

Trump didn't use his own money (When does he ever?). He used money donated to get him to get elected. If he'd asked for money from his supporters to give to porn actresses, this might have been different.

So in effect, he's used the election to obtain funding to conceal something that isn't materially related to the election except that Trump chose to run in it. You could argue that if he wasn't running for office then he would not have felt compelled to conceal it. But he didn't need to run for office either. And didn't need to solicit donations to his election campaign fund. (Not "deception campaign fund")

If what you say is true, a politician could take campaign donations and pay off gambling debts with it, and it would be ok, even if they tried to lie about the nature of this transaction, since a politician has no obligation to publicly settle their wagers either.

The law here seems to be managing to stop politicians from easily lying their way into office. Instead of being encouraged by that, some are indignant that not all politicians get away with it. Like it's un-American for those caught to face consequences just because you suspect that all politicians are guilty of it to some degree.

One of the narratives around Watergate was - It's nothing but a third rate burglary attempted by over zealous and ill judged operators and it requires nothing like the scrutiny and the "withchunt" being exercised in its name. The investigation uncovered not only illegal surveillance, but blatant interference with the FBI, DOJ and the CIA, and the funneling of donations to an election fund to orchestrate dirty tricks against people critical of US involvement in Vietnam and other things like desperately seeking connections between students killed or beaten at peace marches with criminal activity.

Nixon and virtually his entire close staff, including his secretary, felt compelled to lie and give Dick an excuse for, among other things, certain parts of certain tapes being erased "accidentally". Patriotically, of course.

From my POV, the token resistance to evidence presented in the case indicates that certain people want to avoid further scrutiny in the areas that Trump has been convicted. The money given to Daniels is the tip of an iceberg of donations, most of which were probably used legitimately and not fraudulently. But the idea that she was the biggest spend of that nature seems far fetched.