While this falls far short of the punishment he deserves, there was considerable satisfaction to be gained from reports that Donald Trump spent much of the first week of his first criminal trial sitting in silence listening to mean tweets about him read aloud in court. For hours at a time, potential jurors in his New York "hush-money" trial were interviewed to determine whether they could judge the ex-president with an open mind. In the process, both past social media posts and in-the-moment honest opinions were made public. Trump is such a famous narcissist that he literally has a woman who follows him around with a wireless printer to feed him a steady supply of online praise. Hearing what people outside the paid shills have to say was, all reports suggest, very upsetting for the former president. He glowered and eventually tried to leave the courtroom so quickly that he had to be told to sit down by the judge.
The whole thing is a harsh reminder, to his face, that Trump is more suited to wallowing in the gutter than sitting on a throne.
The jury is now impaneled, and no longer will be asked to talk about past social media posts calling Trump "dumb as [expletive]." But, as Monday's trial opening suggested, this trial is set to put Trump's fragile ego through a lengthy battering. It's hard to believe this — considering his ridiculous hair, hideous makeup and comically oversized suits — but by all accounts, Trump seems to actually believe he cuts an impressive figure. He famously spent decades longing to be included in the ranks of Manhattan's social elite, imagining he had a "classiness" they simply failed to perceive. As Elizabeth Spiers of the New York Times wrote last week, "The rich and powerful sometimes invited him to their parties, but behind his back they laughed at his coarse methods and his tacky aesthetic."
Alas, getting elected president allowed Trump to finally swaddle himself in the pomp that allows him to delude himself into believing he has an air of dignified stature. During his time in the White House, of course, he enjoyed the state dinners and other grand ceremonies meant to imbue the office with solemn authority. Granted, Trump's clownishness made all of that seem ridiculous to those looking on, but his attempted stern-faced expressions and chin-up pride suggested that he really believed he was finally being taken for the great man he wished himself to be.
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Even after leaving the White House, Trump went to great lengths to keep himself in this elevated atmosphere. Unfortunately, he gets a lot of help keeping up the illusion of majesty. The presence of Secret Service protection allows him to travel with pricey black-car entourages at the taxpayers' expense. He also sees a steady stream of Republican politicians visit Mar-a-Lago, allowing Trump to play the part of a king greeting supplicants who kiss the ring.
While the outcome of the trial remains weeks away, the process of being a criminal defendant has already stripped Trump of most of the trappings he uses to prop up his delusions of nobility. He has to sit still and do what he's told, which he whines about ad nauseam when outside of court. He keeps reportedly falling asleep and believable rumors suggest that his personal odor is difficult to bear.
On Monday, the humiliations continued to pile on Trump with opening arguments and the first witness, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker. Even in this truncated day of court, the picture painted of Trump was not the regal leader of his fantasies, but who he actually is: A sleazy poseur who belongs to the world of trashy tabloids and scheming hucksters. The whole thing is a harsh reminder, to his face, that Trump is more suited to wallowing in the gutter than sitting on a throne.
The prosecutor, Matthew Colangelo, did not hold back from the salacious details in describing the alleged crimes that led to Trump sitting at the defendant's table: the extramarital sex, the hush money payments, the alleged out-of-wedlock child, the conspiracy with the National Enquirer to pay women off in a practice with the tawdry name "catch-and-kill." He spoke of Trump as such a miscreant that he required a full-time "fixer" to "take care of problems." He read aloud the various National Enquirer headlines crafted to help Trump, a reminder that Trump's natural home is in the most prurient gossip rags. And, of course, Colangelo spoke of Trump's crude bragging on the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape about how he likes to sexually assault women.
Regardless of the air quality around his desk, defense attorney Todd Blanche had a stinky job on Monday: Trying to portray Trump as somehow above the shady people he surrounds himself with. Blanche sanctimoniously called Trump "President Trump," as if saying it makes it true. He tried to humanize his glowering orange lump of a client with, "he’s a husband, he’s a father" and "a person, just like you and just like me." In contrast, Blanche attempted to discredit Michael Cohen, the aforementioned "fixer" who has already served time for his role in this conspiracy, by calling Cohen a "criminal."
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It may work, of course. Jurors are people and people can be bamboozled, as Trump's entire career demonstrates. But Blanche's argument just doesn't make sense. If Trump is such an upstanding citizen, then why would he need someone like Cohen to commit crimes on his behalf? Nor is Trump "just like you," unless you, ordinary person, do so many terrible things on a regular basis that you literally need a full-time fixer to clean up your messes. Most of us go our entire lives without once needing a tabloid magazine to cover up a sad-sounding adultery. As Colangelo's opening statement showed, Trump practically kept the National Enquirer on retainer.
Pecker only spent about 20 minutes on the stand before the judge called recess for the day, but in that brief time, the jury got another glimpse into the vulgar environments that are Trump's natural home. Pecker described his business as "checkbook journalism" and agreed with Colangelo that he traffics in "juicy stories." This is why the location of the trial in New York City matters so much. Tabloids are ubiquitous in the city, which means the typical New Yorker is quite aware of how they function and why they're not considered as respectable as traditional newspapers.
Despite Trump trying to tell reporters this trial is going "very well," reports from inside the courtroom are that he was seething. No surprise there. Prior to this, Trump spent all day, every day inside a bubble, surrounded by flatterers and sycophants, always ready to tell him that he's a mighty man who definitely doesn't weigh an ounce over 215 and wins every golf game with ease. Now he's spending his days in a dingy courtroom, staying silent while other people talk about his real self: A pathetic figure who pressures reluctant women into sex, and then runs to his seedy friends and barrel-scraping employees to bail him out of trouble. If there was a hell, Trump's punishment would be to look into a mirror for all of eternity. Having to hear people tell the truth about him for hours a day is as close as we're going to get on the mortal plane.
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