4/25/24

TRUMP BEHIND BARS
IT FEELS DIFFERENT. BUT IS IT?

DONALD TRUMP, as his criminal case continues in New York City, and the limits of his power are argued in Washington, seems caught and caged.
     I find the most symbolic photos are those in the hallway outside the Manhattan courtroom, where Trump gives his fact-challenged “analysis” of the day's proceedings.
     He stands in a small corral of fencing that seems designed protect him from his frenemies in the media. But to me, the barrier hints at jail.
    For the first time, Trump does not appear quite as exempt from the laws of man and the universe that apply to the rest of us, and that extended even to Trump’s peers in the political and corporate stratosphere.
     Looking also at the photos inside the courtroom, with Trump seated at the defense table before the formal hearings begin, we see a guy who seems a tad vulnerable.
     But how much should we read into the pictures?

     His face looks  blotchy and unhealthy, which is to say, kind of normal for him.
     As for his expressions, those always have seemed rehearsed, just as what’s left of his hair is extensively engineered.
     And his courtroom scowls, those angry eyes, are not necessarily credible indicators what is going on inside the lizard brain.
     Because television cameras and microphones are banned from the formal courtroom proceedings, we are at the mercy of reporters – some of them  America’s best – to tell us what’s up, if anything.
     Has the defendant really fallen asleep? Is he affecting boredom to show his contempt for the legal process? Is his dopiness a function of his long-reputed short attention span?
     “Donald Trump just gave a big yawn....” during a break in hearing, reported the Washington Post’s Hannah Knowles today as part of her paper’s minute-by-minute updates.
     Alternatively, “Trump is growing more animated,” said the New York Times’ Kate Christobek, as testimony focused on Stormy Daniels, the actress whose alleged one-night stand with Trump is at the core of the hush payments case. “He has motioned to both of the lawyers sitting next to him, adjusted his shoulders and crossed his arms over his chest.”
     What does it all mean?

FOR THE SMALL-MINDED – a large, but shameful group if Americans, of which I am a member in good standing – there is much to savor in the New York proceedings.
    It is rich in one quality lacking in the other, more important cases Trump faces: sleaze.
     Sleazy ethics. Sleazy sex. Sleazy money. Sleazy journalism. So much sleaze.
     Just the last name of the prosecution’s first witness proves the point.
    It’s a name that would cause any middle school classroom to erupt in hysterics, the same effect produced by mention of one of the solar system’s lesser planets, Uranus.
     Here we have a man who once presided over one of the tabloid press’s premier publications, with a last name that perfectly describes his role and perhaps his character.
     How fitting, but also cruel. Shouldn’t his family have changed its last name generations ago?
     Or should the witness be grateful that he ended up with a mediocre first name, whereas truly malevolent caretakers might have chosen “Big,” or, even more humiliating, “Little,” as a first name, instead of David.

MEANWHILE, IN WASHINGTON today, the putative grownups on the Supreme Court of the United States spent hours thrashing out arguments into Donald Trump’s claim that, as president, or a former one, he had/has immunity from prosecution for crimes like trying to overturn an election.
     Would the nation’s highest court hand Donald John a get-out-of-jail free card? Would the court carve out an exception to the most scared principle of American government, that no man is above the law?
     The Washington case was as monumental as the New York one was trivial, although either or both could eventually send him to the slammer.
     Justices whom Trump himself appointed seemed impressed by the stakes.
     “This case has huge implications for the presidency, for the future of the presidency, for the future of the country,” intoned Justice Neil M. Gorsuch.
     “We’re writing a rule for the ages,” said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.
     For you and me, both cases – the sleaze one and the Constitutional one - ask the same question:
      Are we finally witnessing the beginning of the end of Donald Trump?
      Or has Trump merely been experiencing a few bad photo-ops as he continues his relentless crusade to destroy American democracy?