Donald Trump, once the most powerful man on earth, threw a pity party on Tuesday night.

Indicted, booked, and fingerprinted, the former president hurried home to his safe haven in Mar-a-Lago, where he wailed surrounded by sycophants and other grabbing hangers-on.

He sings about the course of the 2020 elections. He sang about his attempts to reverse the result. He lied about his mishandling of classified documents. He lied about Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney who filed the charges against him in New York City. “I never thought something like this could happen in America,” Trump said gloomily. “The only crime I have committed is to vigorously defend our nation against those who would destroy it.”

It was a remarkable spectacle, the conclusion of an unprecedented day in American history.

It also underlined how the

completely turned in on itself

Trump has become increasingly disconnected from the lives of those he claims to represent and the needs of a nation he wants to lead again.

Sad.

But not surprising at all.

Ever since he joined the 2016 presidential campaign as a way to boost his corporate name, Trump has been a man deeply devoted to himself and to promoting his greater glory.

And to grow his bank account.

The greedy ex-president, never one to pass up money quickly, released T-shirts with a made-up mug on Tuesday, shot a straight-faced defendant, the historical date and the words NOT GUILTY and put them up for sale as he was preparing to be settled.

He offered a running commentary in all caps KANGAROO COURT, THIS IS NOT WHAT AMERICA SHOULD BE! on his social media network.

However, it is rare to see such a stark contrast between the

humiliated

Trump faces justice Tuesday and

the boastful Trump all the toughness, cunning and hypermasculinity he prefers to exude.

His face was grim and menacing as he walked into a dingy lower Manhattan courtroom to answer the charges

he falsified company records

cover

to two alleged extramarital affairs, which threatened to end his campaign in 2016.

No television cameras were allowed, as preferred by Trump and his legal team.

The former president is composing his image

with a care and scrupulousness that puts the choosiest Instagram influencer to shame. (He once seriously considered taking his clothes off to reveal a Superman T-shirt after being hospitalized and nearly dying of COVID-19.)

So

the portrait of A

chastened Trump, his behavior bound by legal decorum and a no-nonsense judge, was not a picture of him

wanted widely shared

.

In all, he barely spoke more than a handful of words, including a plea of ​​”not guilty.”

hours later,

Trump spoke to invitees amid the marble and gold finishes of his Palm Beach bunker and, in a speech that settled the score, saw down a recitation of known complaints about his two accusations, Hillary Clinton and all, and a new list of alleged injuries. “They can’t beat us at the ballot box,” said Trump, who failed to win the popular vote in either of his two presidential campaigns, “so they’re trying to beat us through the law.”

A big part of his call in 2016 was Trump’s claim to be a champion of the overlooked and forgotten. But only the most willfully blind or gullible can still believe his tribune-of-the-people pose as Trump becomes increasingly obsessed with his copious legal troubles. The Manhattan case is just one, and arguably the weakest, of several criminal investigations facing his persistent lies about the 2020 election.

“He’s no longer talking to or about the American people,” said Don Sipple, a political strategist who helped elect Arnold Schwarzenegger governor in the 2003 California recall. “He’s only talking about himself.”

As candidates, Sipple said, both Schwarzenegger and Trump enjoyed a level of fame that “made it easy to get people’s attention.” It succeeded, he continued, because once the people listened, the celebrities voiced their concerns and addressed issues that impacted voters’ lives; it wasn’t just about themselves or their grievances.

The country faces some tough challenges, Sipple said, and Trump “isn’t focused on that at all. He’s just focused on getting revenge on his enemies.”

tuesday night

Trump spent 25 minutes talking, or rather grumbling

. The background was harrowing: inflation. Mass shootings. An American journalist is taken hostage in Russia. Deteriorating relations with China. An overwhelmed immigration system.

Those issues were mentioned fleetingly or not at all in Trump’s mournful speech. He spent most of his time on a fairytale version of his administration, a long woe is me laments his alleged mistreatment and reckless attacks on those investigating his misdeeds, as well as most blatantly some of their relatives. from Trump

venting may have been a kind of self-medication, help after a day of unusual humility and

painful

humiliation.

But it only served to underline, as Trump offers to return to the White House, how self-absorbed and out of touch with him.

It’s almost criminal.