Trials and Tribulations
Trump—and the country—are about to be tested in an unprecedented fashion
For starters, Donald Trump is going to have to sit still.
In about half an hour—around 9:30 this morning—he is to be seated quietly with counsel in a Manhattan courtroom as jury selection begins in the first of his four felony trials.
Trump will be a criminal defendant. That means he will be expected to act like one. His attorneys will instruct him to behave himself. No tough-guy expressions that convey anger or disgust. No audible sighs. Certainly no outbursts.
They will warn him to be as neutral as possible in his demeanor, to look engaged without betraying emotion. To control himself.
He is to maintain this posture all day, regardless of what happens in court. He is to maintain it as witnesses sit several feet away and testify against him. He is to maintain it through the prosecution’s opening arguments. And their closing arguments.
Then, when each day is over, he is under orders not to release his coiled anger in social media posts or at rallies. He is directed not to attack or threaten any party to the process except the DA. Not the jurors or the witnesses or the prosecutors or the court officers or their families.
Even after hours, Trump has to maintain his composure. Then he has to go back to the courthouse the next morning and do it all again.
This will be his reality every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday for the next four or five or six weeks, or however long it takes for the trial to conclude.
The question isn’t whether he will be able to do this. He’s already demonstrated that he can’t—or won’t—attacking witness Michael Cohen in a social media rant over the weekend. And that’s before the pressure is really on.
It’s no more realistic to expect Trump to have the capacity to conform to the constraints of the court than it would be if a toddler were on trial.
For all the attention focused on the extraordinary significance of a former president facing felony charges while running to reclaim his old job, and for all the uncertainty surrounding how the public will react should he be convicted, the more immediate risks to Trump’s candidacy—and potentially to his freedom—stem from how he behaves as a defendant.
No doubt a lot hangs on the verdict. But just as much rests on the process.
There’s a simple reason why Trump has invested everything in delaying all criminal proceedings that’s even more fundamental than the obvious risk of conviction.
It’s because he can’t do it. He isn’t equipped to stand trial.
Donald Trump doesn’t have the capacity to submit to someone else’s rules. He doesn’t know how to function in an environment he doesn’t control, where his antics won’t play, where he is present but not the center of attention, where he is treated like everyone else.
He rejects the idea that he should be held to account. Donald Trump isn’t held to account for anything. He does what he wants. He always wins.
So later this morning, when the curtain rises on the first-ever attempt to hold Donald Trump to account for felonious activity, we will encounter a situation we have never seen before. Courtroom procedures versus Trump’s id. The immovable object versus the unstoppable force.
It’s easy to predict that Trump will attempt to turn the proceedings into a circus. It’s easy to predict he will lash out in violation of court orders.
Then what?
Then Trump is heading for a moment fraught with interconnected personal and political risks.
Until now, goading the judge to put him in prison for violating the gag order has had political and personal benefits. It’s allowed Trump to strike the defiant posture that’s key to his brand, motivating his base and bathing his ego in the reassuring glow of alpha supremacy.
But that was before the trial, when only the court of public opinion was in session. The risks are different now that Judge Juan Merchan has an obligation to protect the proceedings that will commence in a few minutes.
Those risks extend to the possibility of a political backlash if Trump’s trial behavior highlights how much more unhinged he has become since he left office. Outside his base, people tend to take the judicial process seriously. An uncontrolled overreaction will play into Biden’s strategy of shining a bright light on how much more irrational Trump has become in the three years since people last paid attention.
And of course there is the risk of personal consequences—something Trump has escaped his whole life.
Trump likes to play the martyr. But let’s not kid ourselves—he doesn’t want to go to Rikers, even if the island prison in the East River is waterfront property. Perhaps he’s convinced that no judge would be bold enough to send him there.
Maybe he’s right.
However, it’s also possible that when intermediate steps are insufficient to restrain Trump from acting out, some form of constraint may be necessary. It certainly would be an easy call if the defendant were anyone else, and that has to factor into whatever Merchan decides to do, whether it’s some form of house arrest or possibly more.
Right now it’s still a hypothetical bridge that we will cross when the time comes. But the time is coming, and when it gets here it will be the first big test of The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump—for the defendant and the country. We are soon likely to reach the point where the judge may feel he has no choice but to cross that bridge over Bowery Bay.