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ACCORDING TO LIZ - The Cheater-in-Chief could never do anything subtle.
Instead, on Tuesday afternoon, he tried to spin his shame into a Red Badge of Courage. As a pusillanimous sad-sack of a sputtering excuse for a human being, the ex-White House squatter will never achieve one iota of the maturation and personal achievement of Stephen Crane’s hero.
Against the advice of his Secret Service security detail who wanted to make a low-key – safe – arrival at the Manhattan criminal courthouse through where he was to be arraigned using underground access, Donald “Ego-on-Display” Trump swept up for photo-ops in an 11-vehicle motorcade.
After being fingerprinted like the common criminal he is, and being assigned a New York State rap sheet number, the Donald dragged his feet behind court officers into the room in which the charges against him were read out. To each of the 34 demonstrable charges in the indictment, including the more serious ones of creating phony documentation to cover up campaign finance violations, the once-and-never-again pled not guilty.
Back in Florida, the Oy-Vey-Iz-Mir-Martyr declaimed that: “the only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it”. An interesting notion coming from the poor excuse for a man who, for the prior six years, actively sought to create a base out of dissatisfied wingnuts and use them to annihilate the government of the United States (unless he was leading it), and the principles for which it stands.
Bravo to the court officers who weren’t obsequious enough to wait for the Ex to enter… so he had to shoulder his own way through the door to face the Grand Jury charges.
Before the arraignment, Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia gave a statement to Right Side Broadcasting Network's Brian Glenn (who is also her boyfriend) that the prior prez "is joining some of the most incredible people in history...” and went on to elucidate:
“Nelson Mandela was arrested, served time in prison, Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government. There have been many people throughout history that have been arrested and persecuted by radical, corrupt governments, and it's beginning today in New York City, and I just can't believe it's happening...”
Can most Americans believe our presidency has devolved to such a soap opera?
The rally MTG was headed to headline attracted more media than Cheat-o supporters – maybe a hundred. Oops. Not much support in hometown Manhattan.
According to the New York Times, Judge Juan Merchan urged Trump and witnesses in the case to avoid making statements “with the potential to incite violence and civil unrest.”
The rabid right and their rabbit-in-chief are already flaunting calls to dial down the tone of social media posts about Bragg and his office.
The object of these proceedings has previously posted on his Truth Social platform that the Manhattan district attorney “refuses to stop despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He is a Soros backed animal who just doesn’t care about right or wrong no matter how many people are hurt.” And rambled on: “this is the Gestapo, this is Russia and China, but worse. Disgraceful!”
And He-who-shall-not-be-named had also posted a picture of himself holding a baseball bat next to a picture of the prosecutor.
Back at his base in Mar-a-Lago in a primetime temper tantrum, he struck out at the families of both District Attorney Bragg and Judge Merchan, including the latter’ adult daughter, in a wild-eyed vengeful diatribe reflecting the disregard for any semblance of truth also evident on his not-so-Truth Social.
Trump is not due back in court until December 4, on which date the judge will most likely rule on motions filed by his legal team to dismiss the case, which means that a trial would probably be scheduled for early in 2024.
A fact that just might disrupt any attempt by the former fabricator of falsehoods to solicit the Republican Party nomination for the upcoming fall election.
(Liz Amsden is a contributor to CityWatch and an activist from Northeast Los Angeles with opinions on much of what goes on in our lives. She has written extensively on the City's budget and services as well as her many other interests and passions. In her real life she works on budgets for film and television where fiction can rarely be as strange as the truth of living in today's world.)
