Trump will be jailed, the wheel has turned

Andrew Mitrovica
Indulge me, dear readers.

You might consider the scene I am about to describe as implausible, even fantastic. I share a healthy dose of your scepticism since its central character – Donald Trump – is, as we know, incapable of stillness, let alone introspection.Still, I think it is possible that when his familiar gallery of sycophants, enablers and lawyers has left for the day and he is alone in the quiet of night, the profundity of the legal peril Trump confronts has to register if only for an instant or two.

Sitting in a gilded room at Mar-a-Lago, his painted-on, orange-hued tan washed away, his trademark crisp blue suit, white shirt and long, red tie abandoned, and holding a cell phone for lonely company, the troubling truths that Trump keeps hard at bay are bound to intrude into his reality-defying cocoon.

In those rare moments, an unsettling measure of doubt which may occasionally tip into fear must grip Trump as the cascading list of criminal charges grows with each indictment. I suspect that after a little while, this simmering anxiety dissolves as quickly as it appears.

Then Trump returns to the comfort of his signature state of denial, reassuring himself that he will, as always, escape the comeuppance served to others beneath him who served him – loyally. They are expendable. Unlike Mr President.Trump’s abiding sense of invincibility is a by-product of his defining authoritarian nature and preening, gangster-saturated hubris. But history confirms that, one after another, once cocksure thugs – in and out of high office – who remained confident that they were absolutely and permanently beyond reach are belatedly and reluctantly obliged to face the harsh, discordant music.

We have already had the pleasure of watching as Trump’s pedestrian crew of co-conspirators – who tried to engineer a slate of fake electors in Georgia after the 2020 presidential election – begin to be booked and have their mug shots taken for embarrassing posterity. More are scheduled to follow.

On Thursday afternoon, it will be Trump’s turn to endure that indignity. What a delightful spectacle that is likely to be, coming only hours after Trump’s agreeable tête-à-tête with a former Fox News faux journalist, Tucker Carlson, who has grovelled his way back into a sexual predator’s embrace.

Carlson’s pre-recorded burnishing of his indicted guest’s seething megalomania and platforming of the predictable litany of discredited accusations and mad conspiracy theories will, of course, satisfy Trump’s junkie-like need for validation and attention. Yet, just as with all fleeting highs, it will pass, replaced again by the blunt lows of exposure, vulnerability and humiliation.