We are seeing an Easter Week drama, playing out.
Trump re-posted:
"Jesus is the Greatest. President Trump is the second greatest."
Trump needed to manage a scene. No courtroom video.
Trump’s lawyers wrote:
We submit that the media request should be denied because it will create a circus-like atmosphere at the arraignment, raise unique security concerns, and is inconsistent with President rump's presumption of innocence.
Until yesterday, Trump was playing today's New York arraignment for maximum spectacle value. He said he welcomed the "perp walk" and he was rehearsing how he wanted to look. His merchandise people were talking about mug-shot tee shirts. Trump's story was "bring it on." The image to project was the Trump-the-good-guy-victim, suffering on behalf of humanity. What better time for it than Easter Week?
Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey. Trump flew in on his jet. Jesus carried his cross, wearing a crown of thorns. Trump enters the courthouse in handcuffs. Alvin Bragg is a modern Pontius Pilate, the venal legal authority. Biden is Herod, the remote king, in whose ultimate interest all this was being done. George Soros is the puppeteer for the Jewish crowd choosing Barabbas over Jesus. Trump is Jesus Christ, courageous, selfless, and ultimately to be victorious in 2024, the Second Coming.
That had to sound pretty good to Trump and ready-made for an evangelical base. The timing is great.
There is a problem of character and continuity. One scene in this modern Passion Play would be either off-brand for Trump, or so very on-brand that it would create a plot-line problem later. The court scene for Jesus was raucous and disorderly. It was a mob of citizens with the power to save Jesus--or not. There was a scheme underway to fix the vote in favor of Barabbas, of all people, led by elites who feared Jesus's shakeup of the establishment old guard of rabbis. They manipulated or bribed or somehow rigged a rigged, fraudulent, illegitimate vote. This is a well-established storyline in Trump's version of his story.
Yet today, in the courtroom, there would be a different view on television. There would be decorum and order in the court. The judge would sit high at the big desk. Trump would be below, saying "Your honor" to someone else. That visual image would acknowledge the authority of the court and its right to judge Trump. Jesus finessed that point. When challenged about Caesar's authority, Jesus said the court was irrelevant to his real mission. The court's authority was mere Caesar rendering onto Caesar, but Jesus' mission was spiritual, in service to God. But in this temporal world of Trump, today's court is all-too relevant. Video images of Trump, submissive and obedient to the higher authority of a court, would break the spell of the Trump character, the great leader, indomitable, subordinate to no one.
Trump's threat to make the courtroom a televised circus was a way to assure that no judge would allow it. It would be January 6 all over again, with Trump leading an insurrection. That, too, would be bad optics for Trump. It would show Trump in-character --the charismatic rule-breaker -- but would confound his criminal cases involving Georgia, the purloined documents, and January 6. Two bad choices: Bad optics or bad legal strategy.
Branding and television image is an area where Trump clearly thinks strategically. He bluffed, assuring he would not get what he supposedly sought. It means that the moment when the court's authority over Trump would be most apparent would also be a moment that would be obscene, in the original Greek tragedy meaning of the word, off scene. Trump would enter the courtroom, defiant and indomitable. That's good. He would exit defiant and indomitable. Also good. No one need see that ugly little period when Trump was submitting to some higher authority, a mere state court judge.
Trump isn't just the actor in this drama. He is the director.
Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey. Trump flew in on his jet. Jesus carried his cross, wearing a crown of thorns. Trump enters the courthouse unfortunately not in handcuffs.
From a letter to the editor in my local paper, the Roseburg News-Review:
"We are watching an American legend in the making. Donald J. Trump was created for a time such as this, and I am so glad to announce that on Saturday, March 25, the Douglas County Republican Central Committee voted unanimously to give our full-throated endorsement to the man, the legend, Donald J. Trump as our candidate for President in 2024."
...snip...
"If they can do these things to Donald Trump, they can do these things to us… and they will."
...snip...
"Donald Trump, along with all of us, was created for a time such as this."
Plus, of course, references to "globalists"--which we all understand.
So, yeah, Trump is deified here in Douglas County,.
Personally, I'd rather have Barabbas.
Did his lawyers really write, "President rump"?
Paging Mrs. Malaprop!