The first of the four criminal cases facing Donald Trump began in New York City with prospective jurors being grilled on their ability to put aside what they already know and believe to be true about the former president and fairly render a verdict about the issues at hand. Those issues have been exquisitely described by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as “falsifying New York business records to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election.” Among the information that Trump was allegedly attempting to hide was that he cheated on his wife with adult-film actress Stormy Daniels — something Trump denies. The prosecution has said Trump engaged in illegal subterfuge because he worried that revelations about his infidelity might offend the female electorate. The defense has said Trump simply wanted to keep a personal matter private lest it embarrass him and his family.
And so, here we are. A jury has been seated and opening arguments are expected to begin Monday in a trial for which the dominant talking points spring from Trump’s capacity to be mortified and the public’s ability to be shocked. How quaint.
Trump is accused of caring so deeply about what prospective voters thought of the way he treated women that he went to extraordinary lengths to hide the truth about his brutish nature. We are having this conversation after Trump was found to have defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll when she accused him of raping her and he called her a liar. After the jury ordered him to pay Carroll a settlement of more than $83 million, he continued to publicly attack her. We are here after Trump stood before an audience of voters and referred to one woman as “crazy,” another as “nasty,” called a third a “whack job” and bragged about being instrumental to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and taking away a right to bodily autonomy that women had had for generations.
The legal issues in the New York case are real and they are concerning. And bless the hearts of the lawyers who are litigating them. But it’s hard to look at the criminality being charged without considering just how far the country has come in the years since the alleged activities took place. It seems like such an innocent time back then, before norms and traditions had begun to disintegrate, before folks turned numb to incivility and civil disruption.
The New York charges, of which there are 34, have sometime been referred to as comprising the “runt” of the criminal cases against Trump because legal experts view them as the fuzziest and weakest. The road to Bragg’s accusation of election interference winds through a sordid field of tabloid stories, porn, payoffs and sex. Nonetheless, sitting in a courtroom as a criminal defendant is serious business and having to do so as a former president speaks to both the power of this democracy and the fragility of it. There’s nothing small about this case, it’s just that the country’s fealty to decency, respectability and honesty has retreated further and further into the distance.
The elements of the New York case occurred back before Trump’s election lies helped to spark an insurrection, before Trump saw “good people” among the white nationalists marching in Charlottesville clutching tiki torches and spewing hate, before Trump aspired to use the American military to intimidate fellow citizens exercising their right to free speech and assembly. Those things shocked the consciousness until they no longer did. Until they became mere markers on the road to … where? As the completed jury was being settled, a man tossed pamphlets filled with conspiracy theories into the air and set himself ablaze across from the courthouse. Bystanders screamed, police and civilians attempted to douse the flames, and the man was rushed to a hospital. Law enforcement made statements. Security was discussed. The trial would press on. And then, within minutes, it seemed, the horror had faded. The surprise had dissipated. We are numb.
This case isn’t marked by dire references to top-secret documents or calls to halt the peaceful transfer of power or a shady plot to find votes. It’s more human scale than that. And so, it takes us back to a time when we still — occasionally — treated each other like humans instead of adversaries, mobs, monsters and heretics. Despite all the attendant security, scrutiny and Trump’s own bluster, this is the trial that reminds the public that the former president is merely a man — not a god, not an omnipotent leader, not the bearer of Everyman’s burden. His alleged crimes are those borne out of fear and shame. This is a trial that reminds us of the smallness of Trump even as the idea of him, the myth of him has become outsize.
The former president and his lawyers have worked mightily to delay the start of this case, but now that it has launched, it’s moved more briskly than many expected. It was both heartbreaking and heartening to follow along as the jury was assembled. New Yorkers’ anxieties and fears bubbled to the surface in the cold, dingy courtroom in Lower Manhattan as they considered the pressure they would face and what it would mean if their identity were made public as members of the jury sitting in judgment of Trump. Some even wept. But as riddled with emotion as they were, they retained an earnest desire to do right by a fellow citizen even if it was one whose political beliefs they abhorred, whose personality they found savage and whose behavior they deemed foul.
The public knows little about the jurors as a matter of security. But the details that are known paint them as New Yorkers with varying political opinions and professions who are engaged with the daily news to widely different degrees. They are tasked with looking into our past and brushing the dust off old saws such as shame, shock and dignity.
They have promised to be fair, which is to say that they’ve agreed to treat the defendant with respect. That, too, is a quaint notion. Bless them for holding fast to it.
