Let’s just go with the widely expected chain of events. Sometime after 1 PM Eastern time tomorrow, the Manhattan grand jury will sit. And barring any last minute surprise witnesses, Bragg or his deputy will appear before the grand jury, argue their case, make their points, and ask the grand jury to vote true bills of indictment on the following charges. Presumably the grand jury will follow his lead, and return the indictments. Bragg will then have the indictments sealed, and contact Trump’s lawyers to make arrangements for Traitor Tot to turn himself in.
And the moment that phone rings, Trump’s life changes forever. And not for the better. Right now there are any number of pompous, self assured commentators and analysts out there, with fancy titles and letters after their name, talking about how getting indicted will actually help Trump in the primaries. For them I have one simple question. How many times have you been arrested?
Believe it or not, having grown up in Cicero, Illinois, I’ve never been arrested. But I was detained once. My then father-in-law was driving on expired tags, so I agreed to follow him from the house back to the tollway to keep cops from seeing his plates. One saw him anyway, and saw me covering for him, and we both got pulled into the station.
I wasn’t arrested, but they did search me, take my possessions, and put me in a holding cell. Sweet Jesus, they didn’t even close the door. I could walk out to the common area, grab a magazine or book, and then go back in and sit on the bunk while I read. A cop even came around to bring me a can of diet Coke.
That being said, it was nerve shattering. Because I was no longer in control of my own life. The door to the cell wasn’t even closed, much less locked, but until that cop brought me my wallet and keys, I wasn’t going anywhere! Fortunately, after about three hours, the cop came back in and let me go, they didn’t even ticket me. I didn’t talk to my fucking father-in-law for six months.
And that’s the point I’m trying to make. Trump’s lawyer will make arrangements for Trump to turn himself in, he’ll hop onto Trump Force 1, and pootle up to New York. He will walk into either the Manhattan courthouse, or an alternately agreed on location, and nothing will ever be the same again;
- Trump will have to stand in front of a counter, likely with bulletproof glass, and answer an endless number of intake and booking questions
- Trump will have to surrender his watch, wallet, keys, and any other rings or personal items he has on his possession. Those will be logged in and put in a sealed envelope
- Trump will have to surrender his tie, and take off his suit coat in order to be searched
- He will be fingerprinted, ducking up his pristine manicure for days
- He will be mug shotted, in his shirt, and if Trumpty Dumpty thinks that photo won’t leak, he’s ready for a rubber room
- Depending on the arrangements, Trump may or may not be perp walked wearing steel bracelets into the courtroom for his arraignment. Either way, he will not be wearing his signature suit coat and tie, and I’m betting his hair won’t be pristine
- And worst of all, all of this totally unacceptable indignity will be administered by cops! That’s right, the same cops he’s been sneering at all of his life. Give my driver a ticket shithead, I’ll never pay a dime! And now they’re leading him around by the nuts
And if this sounds degrading and impersonal, it’s because the system is set up that way! The whole object is to remind the detainee constantly that he is totally reliant on somebody else’s good graces. You’re no longer in control asshole, get used to it. And this being slung at a man used to being in total control.
I spoke earlier of the eerie feeling of no longer being in control of my life. And even after the arraignment is over, Trump is no longer in control of his own life. Everything comes down to the court, and the arrangements. While Trump will likely be released on his own recognizance, Trump will almost certainly have to turn over all of his passports, a humbling humiliation for someone like Trump. And even while running for President, Trump may be required to provide the court with 48 hours advance notice for any travel more than 10 miles from Mar-A-Lago for approval, if he isn’t restricted to his Trump Tower residence.
How the hell is FrankenTrump supposed to respond to this? Trump doesn’t take orders, he goddamned gives Not anymore. And worse yet. not one of the slavish, pandering GOP House toadies can intimidate anyone on his behalf now, and neither can the far right bedwetters who aren’t even showing up for him right now!
Trump has already started trying to lay the groundwork for his dipshit base to make himself the martyr. He put out a video on Bullshit Social telling his followers, They’re not coming for me, they’re coming for you. But I’m standing in the way, and I’ll always stand in the way. And that’s a pretty good line of bullshit for the masses, but what about for Trump himself?
Look, we’ve all played fast and loose in our lives. We’ve lied, we’ve cheated, we’ve cut corners, maybe some of us got a little light fingered. And we did it because we all thought that we were smart enough to get away with it. And when we got caught, we quickly learned that we weren’t-all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips. because we all had that little reality bone in our heads that told us we fucked up. And as deeply as he buries it in his psyche, Trump has one too.
Trump has spent 50 long years doing whatever he wanted, and skated out of any real trouble he got into by either threatening litigation, buying his way out, or settling out of court with no admission of responsibility. Trump has been able to mentally turn defeats into victories due to his mental and business acumen, because that’s what his fragile psyche requires.
But not this time. This time Trump is a criminal defendant, he’s in the system, and nobody in the system gives a shit about his status or alleged wealth. And it’s likely just getting started. I figure that by the end of March or the first week of April Trump will be in the Georgia criminal system, and likely in the federal justice system by the end of May. More humiliation and more restrictions.
Trump’s niece, board certified clinical psychologist Mary Trump has written about the fragility of Trump’s psyche. He is sociopathic, and requires a force shield around his ego that allows him to always portray himself as a winner to himself. But what happens if the combined weight of multiple criminal indictments crashes through that defense shield?
All of those analysts and talking heads talk about Trump being indicted as being a good thing for him in the primaries. But what if the end result of those multiple indictments make it impossible for his to successfully compete for the nomination? Don’t touch that dial, this is uncharted territory. Just how strong are Trump’s delusions?
He’ll still try to do something stupid to reassert control. It’ll backfire as usual and he’ll have even less control than before.
“Do you know who I am?!” is practically his mission statement so expecting nothing but reckless, futile actions. Sydney Boehm had the perfect rebuttal to this attitude back in 1953 with his screenplay in The Big Heat: “Prisons are bulging with dummies who wonder how they got there.”
If he’s indicted and released on bail he’ll have to obey the conditions, which will likely include restrictions on what he can say regarding his case and trial, not least because it could poison the jury selection process. But knowing trump he’ll shoot his thumb’s off trying to turn this into an election circus, and end up losing bail and being remanded to custody until his trial is complete. As you say, from that call forward his life changes forever, and we will all have the satisfaction of seeing the transformation.
Sure gonna make campaigning more difficult. Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
I understand that these days, they use electronic fingerprinting, rather than ink.
Frump needs nonstop adulation to live. The only attention you get in jail is scorn from the authorities, or predatory attention from your peers. If he ever goes to jail, he will be kept in isolation for his protection. Although that’s a privilege not offered to the anonymous poor, it will be a form of torture for a narcissist without any survival skills. A win win.
Of course isolation for protection is afforded to the anonymous poor in prison. It’s just that Protective Custody (or “Punk City”) gets all the same respect Trump deserves when given.