While it falls far short of the punishment he deserves, there was no small amount of satisfaction from reports that Donald Trump had to spend much of the first week of his first criminal trial quietly taking it as mean tweets about him were read aloud in court. For hours at a time, potential jurors in his New York "hush-money" trial were interviewed to determine if they could judge Trump with an open mind. In the process, both past social media posts and in-the-moment honest opinions were made public. Trump is such a famous narcissist he literally has a woman who follows him around with a wireless printer to keep him in a steady supply of online praise. Hearing what people outside of the paid shills have to say was, all reports suggest, very upsetting for the former president. He glowered and eventually tried to leave the courtroom so quickly that he had to be told to sit down by the judge.

The whole thing is a harsh reminder, to his face, that Trump is more suited to wallowing in the gutter than sitting on a throne.

The jury is now impaneled, and no longer will be asked to talk about past social media posts calling Trump "dumb as [expletive]." But, as Monday's trial opening suggested, this trial is set to put Trump's fragile ego through a lengthy battering. It's hard to believe it — considering his ridiculous hair, hideous makeup and comically oversized suits — but by all accounts, Trump seems to actually believe he cuts an impressive figure. He famously spent decades longing to be included in the ranks of Manhattan's social elite, imagining he had a "classiness" they were simply failing to see. As Elizabeth Spiers of the New York Times wrote last week, "The rich and powerful sometimes invited him to their parties, but behind his back they laughed at his coarse methods and his tacky aesthetic."

Alas, getting........

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