My wife and I were in New York two days before Donald Trump’s big day in criminal court, so we strolled up to glittery Trump Tower, the place Trump called home before he ever imagined home as a place behind prison bars.
The big guy wasn’t in New York yet. But he’d been calling for mass protests against his upcoming arrest, and we figured we might witness history in the making. The last time Trump called for protests, he almost caused the end of democracy in America.
On this day, though, out in front of Trump Tower, there was only a forlorn guy holding up a banner that read, “Trump 2024 Save America Again.” Not a single soul joined him.
“Stop the political persecution,” the guy said, more to himself than anyone else.
He repeated his pitch a few more times, then stopped when nobody paid attention. On Monday and Tuesday, there were reports of “sparse” gatherings of protesters at both Trump Tower and the city’s courthouse.
But that’s about it, folks, as the disgraced Trump left court and headed back to Florida.
No violence, at least not yet.
Maybe we’ve come further than we thought since the Capitol Hill rioting. Or maybe even Trump’s most delusionary supporters have grown tired of defending this man and his entire squalid, disgraceful, bullying life.
So we’re left with a different kind of protest in the aftermath of 34 separate counts alleging criminal felony by the former president of the United States.
The charges relate, in the driest possible way, to election laws and business transactions and, in the most salacious way, to Trump’s sexual fling with the porn star Stormy Daniels as an unsuspecting Melania Trump nursed their newborn son.
For months, as this week’s courtroom drama approached, the protesters have mainly stayed off the streets. But Trump’s legal defenders have made their complaints known.
They’ve demanded, How can you prosecute a former leader of the free world for such a piddling rap as money for sex?
If that’s what this case was about, protesters would have a point. Whatever sex happened between Donald and Stormy, that’s strictly business between Donald and Melania — just as Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky should have been nobody’s business but Bill and Hillary’s, and not the whole country’s.
This case is about timing.
The hush money to Stormy Daniels came in the immediate aftermath of the so-called “Access Hollywood” audiotape, where Trump bragged about his casual violations of any woman he felt the impulse to grope.
And it came as American voters were on their way to vote for president.
You can try all you want to reduce this case to the small and smarmy payments for sex, but it just isn’t true. This is about money to fix a presidential election.
If those payments aren’t made, Stormy Daniels adds her voice to the “Access Hollywood” tapes. And she does it in real time.
Then maybe Donald Trump never makes it to the White House.
And even such delusional souls as that lone protester outside Trump Tower this week can see how this whole country got conned.
Michael Olesker’s latest book, “Boogie: Life on A Merry-Go-Round,” was recently published by Apprentice House. It’s the life story of Baltimore legend Leonard “Boogie” Weinglass, an original “Diner” guy who grew up to create the Merry-Go-Round clothing chain and contribute millions to charity.
What does it mean to be fully present with each other and the sacred, asks Maryland-born cultural anthropologist Alanna E. Cooper.
As millions mourn the passing of Stephen Colbert from the airwaves, Michael Olesker looks back on the "institution" of late-night TV.
As he gets ready to leave for California, Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg looks back on his time in Baltimore and his 10 years writing for Jmore.
