Former President Donald Trump surrendered at a Manhattan courthouse Tuesday afternoon and pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Hours later in a campaign-style speech back at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump, who in November announced he’s again running for the White House, denounced the prosecution as a “fake case brought only to interfere with the 2024 election.” In his typical style, he sought to profit from controversy using distortions and lies, and he presented himself as a strongman who deserves to escape legal scrutiny.
Faced with the kinds of charges Trump faces — to say nothing of additional ongoing criminal investigations — other politicians might have decided to make a brief, sober statement denying the charges and vowing to fight them in court. Trump is not like other politicians.
Trump sought to invert the social and political pressures of the charges he faces.
According to NBC News reporters, the atmosphere before he appeared was “indistinguishable from a Trump campaign rally.” The campaign playlist was queued up, televisions at the front of the room were encouraging donations via text message, and hundreds of supporters were drinking from bottles of Trump-branded water. When Trump came out, he shook hands and worked the crowd as Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” played over the loudspeakers.
Trump began by arguing for the need to “save our country.”
“I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” he continued. “The only crime I’ve committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.”
In those opening sentences, Trump sought to invert the social and political pressures of the charges he faces. He accused the legal and political establishment of succumbing to illicit behavior; the very notion that he could even be charged with committing a crime was, in his eyes, a sign of the country’s decline.
Indeed, Trump lumped together his…
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