Trump on trial tests his political wherewithal — and American resolve

Throughout its 248-year history, America has witnessed dramatic, high-profile courtroom battles that test the laws and tear at its social fabric: from the Haymarket Square riot case and the Scopes Monkey Trial to the failed prosecution of Hall of Fame NFL running back O.J. Simpson in a grisly double murder.

But the country has never seen anything quite like the made-for-the-screen trial set to start Monday in New York: A former president, who is also the current Republican Party nominee for the presidency, faces a jury in a criminal trial that is posied to grip the nation and inflame political rhetoric in a country that is already sharply divided. Donald Trump, master of public relations, brands himself as a political prisoner. The state of New York contends that he is a common criminal using his stature to mock justice.

That otherworldly canvas promises to be filled in with earthly details of a wealthy businessman paying a porn star to remain silent about the affair she claims they had. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg says Trump broke the law by falsifying business records as part of a scheme to hide payments to Stormy Daniels. Trump maintains that he didn’t sleep with Daniels — and that he didn’t break the law when his former fixer Michael Cohen bought her silence.

There is a belief among many of Trump’s allies and critics, as well as many legal scholars, that the charges in New York are far less consequential to the public interest than the indictments handed down in federal cases involving his retention of classified materials and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, as well as a pending Georgia trial based on his push to reverse that state’s results in the same election.

Still, two-thirds of registered