It is a mark of Donald Trump’s enduring grip on our nightmares that in the run-up to his court appearance on Tuesday the dominant conversational tone in New York wasn’t one of schadenfreude, but anger – and not exclusively towards Trump. On public radio that morning, pundits speculated that publicity around the case had re-energised Trump’s base.
I found myself muttering that this whole thing was a mistake. Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, had brought charges that were too thin, too obscure, too trivial in comparison with the real harm done by Trump. By summoning the circus back into town, Bragg had, effectively, said Beetlejuice three times, and now we would all have to suffer the consequences.
