While we are reluctant to compare Donald Trump to the fictional characters of Shakespeare given the Bard’s skill, subtlety and wit, the ex-president’s rambling Tuesday night seethe-a-thon from the Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom at Mar-a-Lago had all the elements of King Lear’s Act III rage on the hearth. If Lear’s deep flaw is his vanity and how he values appearances above reality, what better tribute to that highly theatrical moment than Trump blasting the world from his gilded stage in Florida?
Whatever history was made this week in the New York arraignment of the ex-president on 34 felony charges stemming form a hush money scheme to cover up his alleged affair with a porn star prior to the 2016 presidential campaign, there was nothing original in Trump’s response. To describe it as over-the-top is wholly inadequate. It was a solid “11” on a 1 to 10 scale of crazy.
Trump didn’t just lash out at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg but at every prosecutor and investigator looking into his suspect behavior whether it involved Stormy Daniels or classified documents stashed at Mar-a-Lago or efforts to overturn the last election or the Trump Organization’s alleged misrepresentations about financial matters to lenders and insurers. And that’s not even considering his apocalyptic views of Joe Biden’s performance in the White House and Democrats generally. “Our country is going to hell,” was his general assessment.
Many of those assembled for the much-anticipated speech including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Michael “My Pillow Guy” Lindell clearly loved it. And, no doubt, so did his core supporters watching at home in prime time. But one has to wonder if staying on brand and tossing red meat to the Always-Trumpers actually served the defendant’s best interests, both as the accused but secondarily as a 2024 presidential candidate.
Lost in all the bluster and prevarication (falsely claiming previous presidents mishandled classified documents, for example) was a more thoughtful assessment that Bragg’s indictment was surely no slam-dunk. There is, at its core, an uncertain interpretation of criminal intent in how Trump attempted to suppress negative stories and whether misdemeanor violations of state business records requirements could be charged as felonies. Trump’s lawyers raised this red flag immediately. But not their client who was more interested in airing long-standing grievances and condemning all detractors as enemies of the state. Again, subtlety is not a Trump trait. Nor is adherence to the truth. Nor, frankly, is respect for the law or courts or judges.
Did Bragg file these charges more for political effect than as an attempt to enforce the law? That’s the Trump claim but to make it convincingly requires a deeper dive into the fact pool than the candidate is willing to make (or perhaps is even capable). And that’s why Democrats should be delighted with this week’s turn of events. If there’s one thing Biden supporters must relish, it’s the growing probability that their candidate, for all his unpopularity, age and modest campaign skills, will face this zealot when he runs for reelection next year. Oh, the Trump supporters will come out to the GOP primaries in force reducing the likelihood that a less hyperbolic candidate or even an upstart like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will be the Republican nominee. But in November when their man needs the votes of Democrats, Never Trump Republicans and Independents? Good luck. A CNN poll found that while a majority of Americans believe politics played a role in the indictment, most approve of the action anyway including a whopping 62% of Independents.
Thus, Bragg doesn’t have to win in the courtroom (an opportunity likely months away). He doesn’t even need to smear Trump with his alleged affairs or his questionable accounting practices. Rather, he needed only to raise legitimate legal questions — assuming he has sufficient evidence to back up the charges — to justify a grand jury holding Trump (and any ex-president or other powerful individual) accountable. The coup de grace is causing Trump to be Trump.
It’s what lost him the presidency in 2020 and is likely destined to do the same in 2024. Call it narcissism, call it serial lying, call it simply bizarre and desperate but to witness Trump in full flower as he was Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago, is — at least for most reasonable people living their lives and not especially fixated on the former reality TV star’s long list of petty grievances — pretty damn appalling.