You’ve probably heard that Donald Trump is having a hard time staying awake at his New York trial.
As it happens, I have a story about this kind of thing. I wrote about it for The Week one time.
A few years back, I went to the federal courthouse in Philadelphia to cover a cop corruption trial for a local magazine. It was an important day — a key witness who had worked with the accused officers was giving testimony. I took my place in press row among other journalists, got settled in…
…and then I promptly fell asleep. Dead away. Missed a lot of the testimony.
At the next recess, a security officer in the courtroom told me I shouldn't be there if I couldn't stay awake. The problem? I couldn't. I'd been having sleeping problems for several years by that point, and I was increasingly having trouble disguising it at work. It was one thing to drift off and doze for a few minutes in the privacy of my office. It was another thing entirely to do it in a crowded courtroom, among my colleagues from all the city's top news outlets. It was one of the most humiliating days of my career.
But the pain went beyond work.
People afflicted with sleep issues have higher rates of obesity, high blood pressure, and depression. I got all of it. Living with bad sleep makes it difficult to enjoy relationships and engage the world in normal ways: For years, I couldn't sit through a movie, read a book, or have dinner with friends without nodding off. I was miserable.
I was, in fact, ready to die during much of this period.
I’m a lot better these days. I get better rest, stay awake all day — but I’m still fat and have high blood pressure. (Dammit.) But I remember that desperate humiliation, that existential anger at not being able to control my ability to stay awake in public settings.
And that memory makes me feel a little bit sorry for Donald Trump these days.
Don’t get me wrong. I hope they throw every book in the library at him. He should never be president again. And if he goes bankrupt after a lifetime of failing upward from one disaster to the next, well, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Donald Trump is — as far as I am capable of judging another person’s soul — a despicable human. But he’s still human. And I refuse to let his despicability blind me to that.
Your mileage may vary.
I had similar feelings when this was reported. I don’t have the same issues as you, but I am a natural night owl, and when I was working, would consistently stay up too late relative to when my alarm was set. This led to a reputation for dozing off during meetings and in one instance, falling asleep during a one-on-one language class. As Mark Slackmeyer said of Nixon, “Guilty, guilty, guilty.” But I understand how hard it would be for me to stay awake in a similar courtroom.
When I read that you felt sorry for him, my impulse was to write you back with a tart riposte, the general contours of which I am sure you can guess. Then I read your piece. So empathic. More empathic than he deserves, but bravo anyway. 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼