The Political Theater of the Trump Trial
Day after day they appeared, many of them dressed in dark suits and red ties, in homage to their leader. They came from Washington D.C. or from the states that had sent them to Congress to do damage control and prop up a personality cult that risked being tarnished by their leader’s criminal trial.
Adopting the leader’s uniform was still optional –he was not dictator just yet. Yet the most slavish, such as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), took their roles as proxies seriously, in keeping with authoritarian tradition. Benito Mussolini’s best-known stand-in had been his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano, who earned the nickname “the Jaw” because, as biographer Laura Fermi observed, “when Mussolini thrust out his chin, Ciano thrust his own half an inch farther.”
These mini-Trumps were there for Trump: their appearance would gain them points in the exhausting loyalty competition he staged daily. Yet they were also there as bait for the media. As keepers of the personality cult, they had to create a spectacle and energy around Trump, who had often appeared in court as a sleepy and flatulent elderly person, to the point that “for his followers his image as a strongman is on trial,” as Sidney Blumenthal observed in the Guardian.
These MAGA acolytes also came to New York to wage information warfare and discredit the judge and the democratic justice system that dared to try and hold their idol accountable for his crimes. As I have argued, Republicans have been on a larger crusade to delegitimize democratic institutions, turning the public against the courts, judges, the press, and politicians who uphold the rule of law, truth, and accountability.
When a party has become the personal tool of a strongman, his fate is their fate: they rise and fall with him. That is why MAGA loyalist Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) answered the call and dropped all pretense of being Speaker of a bipartisan House as he gave his own command performance at the courthouse.
Significantly, he did not just call this specific trial a “sham” and a “travesty of justice,” but blasted the larger court system that made the trial possible, calling it politicized and “corrupt.”
As for Trump, his apparent napping during the court proceedings was actually “strategic sleeping,” as I call it—his way of showing scorn for the proceedings, as though he were so secure in his strongman persona of “the man above all other men” that the judge and the jury were not even worthy of his attention.
Of course, his statements as soon as he was set free from the courtroom, and into the night on Truth Social, suggest otherwise, filled as they were with panicked denunciations of the outrages du jour and vows of revenge.
Now a guilty verdict has been rendered, Trump and his enablers will count on the solidity of his victimhood narratives to carry him through. Look for a redoubling of the “witch hunt” claims, and for Trump to take refuge in the outlaw image he has cultivated since he first came on the political scene and talked about shooting someone on “his” terrain of Fifth Avenue.
As I wrote in the conclusion to Strongmen:
“The strongman’s rogue nature also draws people to him. He proclaims law and order rule, yet enables lawlessness. This paradox becomes official policy, as government evolves into a criminal enterprise, Hitler’s Germany being one example and Putin’s Russia another. Millions around the world have found it intoxicating to be able to commit criminal acts with impunity… the thrill of transgression mixed with the comfort of submitting to his power turns the everyday into the exceptional, endowing life with energy, purpose, and drama.”
The clones lined up outside the courthouse, their eyes gleaming with the excitement of it all, have found a mission in life by serving Trump: he is their vehicle to the freedoms that they think will come when their power is expanded.
None will likely meet the fate of Mussolini’s Ciano, who was executed on orders of Il Duce when he voted in 1943 to remove his father-in-law from power for incompetence. If authoritarian history is any judge, though, some of them will be discarded when they are no longer useful, their performances at the courthouse long forgotten by the man they now serve so faithfully.
To paraphrase Churchill, this is the end of the beginning. Perhaps. There are multiple Trump wannabes drinking the Kool-Aid. Let’s celebrate tonight and recognize the hard work continues tomorrow.
Great article. This is the stand-out comment for me:
"This trial could never have happened in the countries Trump admires. No one can hold Xi, Putin, Orban, Erdogan, Lukashenko, or any other of these vile strongmen accountable. This is why we invest in democracy and work to uphold it when it is being attacked."