By Timothy L. O’Brien / Bloomberg Opinion
Donald Trump is scheduled to be arraigned in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday on criminal fraud charges. He’s a former president, so he may be granted considerations average defendants don’t receive; meaning he may not be handcuffed and perp-walked in front of the media, for example.
Nonetheless, a man addicted to public attention and praise will face a very public humiliation. Do not expect him to go gently, of course. Trump has spent decades weaponizing the legal system against competitors, partners, the government and critics while avoiding lasting accountability in court himself. Even if he slogs through the tarpit of prosecutions and investigations now engulfing him, that air of invincibility has been pierced. He has been indicted.
To a certain extent, Trump’s ability to rely on attorney-client privilege and a long-standing disregard for legal and civic norms is being shredded. His response to the unfamiliar and perilous world in which he finds himself will be incendiary and violent. He will incite the mob in much more strident and vicious ways than he has already. That’s to be expected, alas. Trumpism is built upon real and manufactured racial and class outrage, and Trump possesses an unusual ability to tap into that venom. So he will.
Trump’s unquenchable neediness will also inform how intensely he responds to being trotted out as a piñata on a public stage. That just isn’t his idea of what stardom entails.
Moments like this always remind me of the time that Trump screened “Sunset Boulevard” for me on his private jet about 20 years ago. I’ve trotted out this example before, but it’s still useful. You might recall the plot: Gloria Swanson, a faded movie goddess herself, plays the silent-film star Norma Desmond, outraged about being eclipsed by the arrival of the talkies. In one of the movie’s most wrenching and uncomfortable scenes, she lets the world know she has no intention of fading away: “Those idiot producers. Those imbeciles! Haven’t they got any eyes? Have they forgotten what a star looks like? I’ll show them. I’ll be up there again, so help me!”
As Desmond’s resentment played out in front of us, Trump leaned over my shoulder to offer me some guidance: “Is this an incredible scene or what?” he whispered. “Just incredible.”
Trump has an affinity for Desmond because she’s a like-minded soul. He doesn’t brook naysayers, including law enforcement, who presume to intrude on his stardom. He lashes out whenever it happens, because it’s always all about him.
I’ve already argued that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump — which apparently rests upon bookkeeping fraud and campaign finance violations tied to hush money payments to a porn star — appears to be the slimmest of those now arrayed against the former president. When Bragg’s indictment is unsealed, it may contain a more wide-ranging and damning fact pattern than that. We won’t know until we see the indictment.
Still, the merit of Bragg’s prosecution is in for an imminent reckoning, just as much as Trump himself is. The law and the justice system are messy and shot through with human inadequacies.
But the rule of law is fundamental to a civil society, and Trump, his fellow cultists and the era he is shaping have tested our legal institutions. They’ve tested our political, academic and civic institutions as well, but it’s the justice system, and Bragg’s fellow prosecutors in other jurisdictions in New York, Georgia and Washington, D.C., that are in the barrel now.
It would be easier to pick sides in Bragg’s matter if the bona fides of his case were stronger than they have appeared to be. Maybe the unsealed indictment will resolve that problem. If it doesn’t, we may be in for seismic pressures that inform how all of this plays out. Trump can be relied upon to widen those fault lines.
In the larger scheme of Trump’s assault on democracy and institutions, it’s become fashionable to dismiss some of this as the machinations of a sometimes unpalatable change agent. Trump is getting things done. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Those amiable folks laying siege to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were just tourists. Besides, the system held up. He left office. The courts handled everything. Case closed.
All of that is shallow and absurd, but it retains traction among a large swath of Trump apologists. For Trump’s most ardent and open supporters, the line is different. Prosecutors aren’t only coming for Trump; they’re coming for them, average Americans. Trump’s just in the way. Look to Tucker Carlson and his fellow propagandists at Fox News for the most comically shameless narratives peddling that argument.
Should Trump’s inevitable calls for violence escalate into something more tangible, fractious and long-lasting, it will offer a reminder that what he does — and how our communities and institutions respond to it — will say as much about us as it does about him.
Trump has always tested everyone around him. His inner circle has largely been populated by buffoons, but as he has made his way up in the world during his 77 years he has continuously corrupted an ever-expanding circle of people. He’s now able to test a nation.
How average citizens — and flawed but necessary institutions like the courts — respond to Trump, Trumpism and the former president’s enablers in the Republican Party will determine how well the U.S. passes that test. Current and former presidents shouldn’t be entitled to foment political insurrections. And resisting Trump’s calls to violence, and allowing institutions to carry out their duties peacefully, will amount to a passing grade.
Timothy L. O’Brien is senior executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion. A former editor and reporter for the New York Times, he is author of “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald.”
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