I am asking for a friend. Well, not my friend, but he must be someone’s friend. Mustn’t he? This person is on criminal trial in Manhattan this week, facing charges of paying hush money to an adult-film star. If I had fallen asleep during this trial and then jolted awake, as he had, I would still not be sure that I was awake. Consider all that has happened in this trial so far.
For anyone who has not been hooked on every update, during the instructions to the potential jurors, “Donald Trump closed his eyes and at times appeared to nod off, then would abruptly catch himself and stiffen his posture,” according to The Post. The classic high-energy behavior of a man whose real professional doctor says that he has (I am paraphrasing) 100/100 vision, the ability to cure scrofula with a touch and a skull with no lumps in the zone of criminality.
So, suppose you are Donald Trump. You jolt awake in this Manhattan courtroom — dingy and cramped, according to the journalists there, and somewhat smelly. You look around you. Is any of this really happening?
Behind you, there is an aide “who uses a wireless printer to provide … an ongoing stream of good news from the internet,” according to the New York Times. Certainly something we all have in real life. Whenever I wonder whether I am awake or dreaming, I glance behind me to see if my Internet Praise Printer is there and operational. (My aide carries a typewriter that dings merrily when the good internet news is about to reach the end of the line, but I hear people who are really to the manor born have a monk who scribes the good news on vellum.)
Then, you wonder, is it normal for 50 of 96 prospective jurors to raise their hands and say they could not be fair and impartial in the trial? What about for the remaining jurors to be treated to a little bit of grilling during which they are forced to account for all their memes and sometimes their spouse’s memes, too?
This is followed by the thrilling moment when the judge begins to read memes into the record? (“Trump invites the Thai boys to the White House, and the boys request to return to their cave.”) You get to look at a meme that has been printed out (printers — the unsung heroes of this trial!) depicting you next to former president Barack Obama with the caption “I don’t think this is what they meant by Orange is the New Black.”
Then you go to a bodega? And give a speech explaining that what you have done is not a crime and that the real crimes are happening … at bodegas? And the Republican Party’s X account shares footage of adoring children shouting your name?
Would you feel certain you were awake, even now?
I was not even there, and I do not feel certain. Just because a thing usually happens only in your cold-medicine nightmares doesn’t mean it isn’t also very much happening in real life, in a Manhattan courtroom, next to a wireless praise printer. That’s the lesson of the Trump era, to me.
Donald Trump is falling asleep next to his printer that tells him good news from the internet while he is on trial in Manhattan for paying hush money to Stormy Daniels, and every juror has an opinion about him and the judge reading memes into the record doing so with a scowl. Am I going to jolt awake soon? I hope I’m going to jolt awake.
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