A core complaint of the Trump camp, attorneys and supporters is that the trial in which the former President was found guilty on all 34 felony counts was fundamentally flawed because the trial was held in the liberal bastion of Manhattan, New York City. This underscores the fact that many of Donald Trump’s supporters have no idea where he comes from or what his history is.

Today Trump is regarded across large swathes of rural America as a red-state savior. Someone who understands their hopes, their fears and their needs better the liberal elites in far off urban towers. But that’s Trump the political product, not Trump the man.

Donald Trump was born and raised in New York City, Queens to be specific. If there is such a thing as big city elites no one would be a better poster boy than Donald Trump. People in red state America think they know Trump, people in New York do know him, quite well.

Donald Trump is or was under criminal indictment in 4 different jurisdictions, two state and two federal. In the three remaining cases the trials have been halted or thwarted so effectively that none is likely to go before a jury prior to the upcoming Presidential election. Which is a travesty unto itself because the American people and the people in those jurisdictions have a legitimate right not only to a speedy trial, but to know the outcomes of those trials before they go to the polls in November.

The only case that managed to get to trial was the New York hush money case. In which we see a certain Shakespearian form of justice unto itself. New York, of course has one thing the other jurisdictions do not have, New Yorkers. Nowhere else would Donald Trump have had a similar opportunity to be judged those who could be defined as his true peers than in the place he is of and from.

Sentencing now looms in the New York hush money, election interference trial. The two biggest factors when a judge considers a sentence for a convicted defendant are, sentencing guidelines and the conduct of the convicted defendant. Sentencing guidelines do not change, the big variable is the conduct of the convicted defendant.

Does the subject accept responsibility for their actions? Does the subject show remorse and contrition? Has the subject been respectful of the court and its authority? Would the subject be likely to commit additional offenses if at liberty? Relating to those 4 key categories it would be fair to say that Donald Trump has done everything humanly possible in terms of his conduct to create the climate for Judge Juan Merchan to sentence him to jail. He has gone above, beyond and to extraordinary lengths to earn jail time.

Trump has repeatedly attacked the legitimacy of the court, menaced Judge Merchan and his daughter, ignored multiple gag orders intended to reign in his conduct and generally made a mockery of the entire justice system.

In many ways Donald trump’s performance in court was more evocative of notorious mobster John Gotti’s decades earlier than that of a former US president. The Judge in the 1992 Gotti trial, I. Leo Glasser appeared to be employing many of the same corrective measures to manage Gotti’s conduct as Judge Merchan has been in reining in Trump’s. The parallels are eerie.

If any jury in America had a legitimate right to render a verdict on Donald J. Trump is was the jury of his true peers in his native New York City. The biggest favor the New York justice system did for America was allow the country to see Trump for who he really is. A thing many of his supporters in communities far removed from the big eastern city of his birth have really not wanted to see.

Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.