The big, blustery man suddenly looked pretty small. With his hefty frame wedged into a suit, he was coughing and sweating profusely. He had turned a shade of pink that you usually only see in schoolchildren who have been caught red-handed. As the day went on, his eyes got wilder and wilder.

Alex Jones had finally entered a situation he couldn’t scramble out of, a zone he couldn’t flood with shit.

For decades, Jones has been able to say whatever he wants. He learned through experience that, if you say inflammatory things loudly enough and often enough, people will pay attention. In this particular case, he was on trial for repeatedly claiming, without evidence, that the murdered children in the Sandy Hook massacre weren’t real, and that their parents were “crisis actors.”

Jones has spent over 20 years spewing conspiracy theories to his audience. It’s made him a national figure, and many of his unhinged allegations — false flag operations, the deep state, crisis actors, shadowy plans by the government to imprison Americans — have found their way into the rhetoric of elected Republican politicians. His paranoid rants have poisoned our political discourse. They’ve also put a lot of money into his bank account — at times, more per day than a teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School likely made in a decade — because they help to sell “Super Male Vitality” pills and bulletproof vests.

Maybe Jones actually believes all this stuff. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter, really, to what degree he’s evil and to what degree he’s stupid. His words and actions have had the effect they’ve had, and I have no desire to spend my time poking around among the cobwebs in Alex Jones’ brain to discern his true beliefs.

So what happens when a guy who has made a very lucrative living spewing immense quantities of hateful bullshit enters one of the very few places in American society where spewing bullshit can’t help you win?

After twenty years of ranting and raving with no filter, Jones found himself in a courtroom run by a no-nonsense judge. He still seemed to believe that he could say whatever he wanted in his broadcasts (he attacked the judge and the members of the jury while the trial was ongoing) and not have that come back to bite him hours or days later in the courtroom. In this, Jones was badly mistaken — his own lawyers had made the monumental mistake of sharing the contents of his phone with opposing counsel, and Jones found himself unable to squirm out of the reality of what he’d done.

When he tried to bluster and rant, Judge Maya Guerra Gamble shut him down. Jones seemed to think that he could weasel his way out of being pinned down on the stand, that saying he believed his words were true made it defensible to say them. Judge Gamble disabused him of this:

This is not your show. Your beliefs do not make something true. You are under oath. It seems absurd to instruct you again that you must tell the truth while you testify. Yet here I am.

I can think of at least one other person in American public life who has spent years making money, gaining notoriety and power, by spewing inflammatory falsehoods and half-truths. Somebody who seems to believe that he should suffer no consequences for breaking the rules around our democracy and poisoning the bloodstream of American politics.

Donald Trump, like Jones, has garnered himself a great deal of fame, power, and money convincing Americans of things that aren’t true. Indeed, the quantity and velocity of Trump’s lies are a big reason that he has managed to escape a lot of the consequences he might have otherwise suffered.

It’s hard to take aim at a constantly shifting, dissembling target. By the time the press got a handle on one outrage or lie, he had done six other things to distract the public. This is part of what has allowed Trump to keep his popularity among a certain segment of the population — he’s very rarely been called on the carpet.

Our media and political ecosystems use shame and embarrassment to keep people honest. Trump is capable of neither, so he is totally comfortable lying in public. Though Trump rarely speaks to the mainstream press anymore, when he has been forced to participate in debates or serious interviews, he has proven incredibly skilled at turning the proceedings into a confusing, antagonistic spectacle that muddies the waters rather than clearing things up.

But what if he found himself on the stand? What if he actually had to answer questions truthfully, because there would be real consequences for lying? What if there was a judge who had actual authority over him, who could force him to tell a coherent version of the truth? What if he was forced to confront, honestly and seriously, the evidence against him?

This would undoubtedly be good for the nation. Perhaps Trump, under oath, would be forced to finally admit that he’d lost the 2020 election (much like Jones finally had to say that the Sandy Hook murders were real). Maybe the truth about some of the most awful national episodes in recent decades would come to light.

Though I’m sure the hardcore Trumpies would remain convinced that whatever happened in a trial was the sinister deep state at work, seeing footage of Trump squirming under the thumb of a judge would tarnish his mystique, even among many of his supporters. Whether Trump actually ends up in jail or not — and he certainly deserves to spend some time behind bars — a Trump trial would weaken a man who poses a profound danger to our democratic system.

And what about me? Maybe it’s petty of me, but I would really, really love to see Trump in a situation like the one Alex Jones found himself in. I’d love to see him sweat and turn colors and sputter as he realized that this was one situation he couldn’t bullshit his way out of. I’d love to see his eyes change as it dawns on him that he finally, for once, had to face consequences for what he’s done.

After all he’s put us through, don’t we deserve just one moment where Trump has to face the music?

Thanks for reading! If you’d like to receive an email whenever I publish an article, click here. I’d be forever grateful if you consider supporting my writing. There are two ways to do so: by buying me a cup of coffee here or by joining Medium with this link (I’ll receive a portion of your membership fee at no additional cost to you).