Amanda Marcotte Makes A Very Good Argument For Not Having Cameras In The Courtroom

Seems Trump went to NYC hoping to yell at large crowds on the courthouse steps and raise money for his legal defense(s).  After two days, the show closed and Trump left town.

It is, of course, a great relief that Trump decided it wasn't worth sitting for hours in hair and makeup every day to rant at cameras while no one is listening. It certainly doesn't mean Trump is over. His base continues to be endlessly gullible, forking over cash to the alleged "billionaire" so he can pay his legal bills, and they really loved giving him money because he got a mugshot in Georgia. But this week was a welcome reminder that Trump's tactics of lying, threatening, and creating a spectacle have limited value in the courtroom setting. Courts require sitting still and being quiet, two skills that any 2-year-old can easily best Trump at. There's a good chance this is the first sign that Trump will find rapidly diminishing returns in trying to turn the various trials that await him into political opportunities. 

Now, granted, even with TeeVee cameras in the courtroom, Trump is constrained by a judge who will gavel him down and even have him removed for creating a disturbance.  Besides, Trump is a coward.  He won't begin to try to bully a judge.  We'd just get to see him sulk on camera, live.

But he'd love going out to yell at the cameras every chance he got, knowing there was an audience out there waiting to hear what he had to say about what they had just watched.

I watched the cable news coverage Monday morning, as Trump made his way to court. Initially, the networks were game to turn this into a 3-ring circus. CNN even had the drone camera following Trump's motorcade to court. There was breathless commentary as various players walked by the camera banks into the courtroom, with Trump's people clearly under instructions to grin for the cameras if this were a red carpet at an awards show. 

Then the supposedly big moment of Trump's arrival came, and the whole pageant fell apart. Trump only got a minute or two into his diatribe, when both MSNBC and CNN realized it was brutally boring TV. So they cut his sound and talked over him. Fox kept the audio feed live, but almost certainly to avoid future Trump tantrums. Listening to Trump prattle on about himself is tough on a good day, even for his own followers. But it's impossible to pay him any mind when he's whining about how his net worth is [fill in lie] and not [what it actually is] and how he wants a jury (even though he waived the right) and how everyone is out to get him. He didn't even really bother, at least in the brief parts that went live on-air, to pretend his supposed victimhood is about his supporters. It was just an extended, hard-to-follow crybaby sesh.  

That "breathless commentary" faded fast because the networks knew all they could televise was warmed-over Trump.  His shtick is old; his jokes a moldy; his patter is so well worn it has holes in its shoes.  If they can't get in the courtroom, and this is the best they can get outside the courtroom...why bother?

🤷🏻‍♂️ 

So Trump died from oxygen deprivation.  And he went home because none of his patter was selling anymore.  He's a snake oil salesman whose reputation is too well known to all but the most gullible.  He's Mike Lindell slowly losing his retailers and about to have American Express cut his line of credit to virtually zero.

And all because nobody can put his trial on daily broadcast and make the TeeVee cameras captive to his pitiful, repetitive, tedious rants. I get the argument America should see the evidence presented against Trump in a court of law, but unless you're a lawyer like Lisa Rubin (or me), this:

The Attorney General’s special counsel, Andrew Amer, just finished his direct exam in a fairly spectacular manner, eliciting admissions from McConney that he assisted Allen Weisselberg in a years-long tax fraud despite understanding that what they were doing was not lawful. 

He did it, McConney further admitted, because Weisselberg directed him to do it, Weisselberg was his boss, and he feared he would lose his job. Wow.

Is not exactly "Must See TeeVee!"  Even if four studio talking heads and two former federal prosecutors explain it with charts and graphs and computer imagery; it's still watching paint dry.  And that kind of non-compelling testimony is expected to take up weeks of everyone's time.  Nobody at home is gonna tune into that.

But if you allow the cameras to be there, the cameras will be there. So Trump will imagine the crowds are waiting for him to speak.

I, for one, am happy to deprive him of his oxygen for the sake of the republic.  Especially since he can't go home during his criminal trials.  That will be a special kind of hell for him.

I'm honest enough to say I'll enjoy that. 😈