TV made Donald Trump the politician he is now – a Teflon figure with huge popular appeal.
But it could have been the instrument of his undoing, had the authorities allowed the American viewing public to see the great grifter out of his element, under pressure, bored, sweaty and fearful in a criminal court.
The scales might have fallen from a great many eyes as they watched his first appearances in the hush payments trial in New York.
Psychologists think it was Trump’s gilded (and utterly contrived) TV role in The Apprentice that enabled him to form “para-social” bonds with dazzled TV viewers.
It cemented his reputation for strength and shrewdness, and even his self-proclaimed infallibility.
Thereafter, for hardcore fans and acolytes, the contrast between what The New York Times and MSNBC said about him and the preternatural presence onscreen was simply too great.
His political opponents want to let in the cameras. In August last year, in a letter to the Judicial Conference, the agency that oversees federal courts, 38 Democrat members of the US Congress called for Trump’s upcoming trial relating to the attempted insurrection on 6 January 2021 to be televised.
“Given the historic nature of the charges brought forth in these cases,” they said, “…it will be vitally important for it to witness, as directly as possible, how the trials are conducted, the strength of the evidence adduced and the credibility of witnesses.”
Some legal commentators are against video recording or streaming criminal proceedings for fear it may encourage grandstanding by participants, or compromise jurors’ privacy. But Trump is doing plenty of grandstanding outside the courtroom – regardless, it seems, of a gag order – with his constant denigration of the court and its officials and witnesses.
There are also concerns that video clips from court may be taken and used out of context. Most judges would, no doubt, prefer that the American public pore over detailed court reports in The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal for their legal news.
On the other hand, Todd Landman, a political scientist at George Washington University, thinks that “not televising the trial may lead to misrepresentation of what has actually transpired”. He added: “At present, the public is left with competing interpretations and reports from journalists and legal correspondents.”
Anyway, most Americans don’t read The New York Times. They watch the telly.
And in the coming weeks, when Trump finds himself in strange and hostile territory – stuck in a Manhattan courtroom for at least four days a week, eight hours a day, unable to come and go or interrupt, let alone saunter off for a long lunch or play golf – his unusual and damaged personality will reveal itself in a way that it has rarely done before.
Voters deserve to see this before they decide whether to vote for him on 5 November.
Trump’s nemetic niece Mary, a trained psychologist with a unique insight into the presidential hopeful, thinks so.
She notes in her compelling Substack newsletter that her uncle “doesn’t handle it well when he feels like the walls are closing in on him. He freaks out – and acts out – when he feels thwarted because he so rarely ever has been. We’re looking at a very old and fairly complex psychology that goes back to his childhood”.
She adds: “A lot of people are going to see certain traits, like his thuggishness, his temper, his sense of grievance, that may play well to some in certain settings, but that in this setting will come across very differently. He will be seen to be rude, weak and incapable of controlling himself when bound by the same rules to which the rest of us must conform.
“It’s a travesty that there are no cameras or live audio feed in the courtroom,” she says, to relay to millions of TV viewers “what’s actually going on- from Donald’s demeanor, facial expressions and body language to the jurors’ reactions, the tone of the counsel’s questions and the judge’s rulings.
“Even after one day, it was clear Donald wasn’t faring well.”
You might wonder if Mary has a family axe to grind. But other psychologists concur.
“This trial will be excruciating for Trump,” says Professor Ian Robertson at Trinity College Dublin, “because he cannot control events to feed his narcissism and dominate and control others – which is the only mode of existence he has known his entire life. He has all the diminished personality of a drug addict and will have a sort of withdrawal response during these enforced court days.”
It won’t be pretty. But the American public deserves the right to see Trump go cold turkey before they vote for him.
Mary thinks it might even push him towards a self-destructive stand in the witness box. It would be a shame to miss that.
As things stand, only Trump’s criminal trial in Georgia will be televised, as per Georgia law. An act of Congress is required before cameras are allowed into the other criminal proceedings.
After Trump dozed off in court on Monday, the moderate Republican political website The Bulwark dubbed him “Sleepy Don”, and bemoaned the lack of TV cameras to show the US public that whatever “Sleepy Joe” Biden’s faults, his Republican rival was worse.
“Once again, the universe has done Trump a favour,” it snarled. “If video was allowed in the courtroom and we had tape of this obese old man nodding off because he doesn’t even have the vigour to stay awake during a criminal trial, this election would be over.”
Perhaps, perhaps not. But it might have been worth a try.