Barring any last-minute surprises, we are now all on the brink of seeing a spectacle that has never happened before: an ex-president of the United States defending himself in criminal court against felony charges. Donald Trump's lawyers filed a flurry of motions this week to try to stave off this inevitability, but to no avail. Each one was summarily dismissed or postponed and in none of them did Trump achieve what he had been seeking, which was to delay the start of his first criminal trial. I should mention that I say "his first" with optimism, since he is facing three other possible felony court cases -- but nobody knows when (if ever) any of them will begin. Hope springs eternal, but for now what we've got is: "The People of the State of New York versus Donald Trump."

Trump is admittedly a master of the legal delay. He has seemingly-bottomless funds to foot the bills of teams of lawyers who will file every motion under the sun in an effort to delay, delay, delay. Each and every motion can then be appealed all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which currently has three members appointed by Trump himself. A court case which in normal circumstances would be over within a few months or perhaps half a year at most can be dragged out for years and years in this fashion, and Trump has been a master at doing so for decades now. He has participated in one way or another in thousands of court cases, although this will be his first as a criminal defendant.

This is where he (hopefully) has finally met his match, in a no-nonsense New York judge and a New York appellate court system that has cast a very dim eye on Trump's legal shenanigans. Next week will dawn with Trump sitting in a courtroom, glaring at everyone in sight, finally being forced to face the music for his past misdeeds. There will be no television cameras in the courtroom, so instead we'll have to be satisfied with courtroom sketches, as well as breathless recaps of each moment of the trial from the lucky journalists who have secured access to the proceedings. This is likely to go on for multiple weeks, so it is an open question whether it will sort of fade from the public consciousness at times, only to (perhaps) explode back into the headlines when some dramatic moment happens in court. Some of the case will be nothing more exciting than rather dense presentations of documentation, but then there will be high points to perk things up too, such as Michael Cohen or Stormy Daniels testifying.

The biggest question I have is whether Trump will behave himself or not. He doesn't exactly have a great track record in this regard, and he is not exactly used to being told to sit down and shut up in any aspect of his life. If he does explode at some point (perhaps when Cohen is on the stand?) and starts loudly yelling things in the courtroom, it could even hand him a short-term benefit. If Trump starts spouting off in an unhinged manner and (while doing so) refers to legal theories the judge has not allowed his defense attorneys to use, we could end up with a mistrial. That would reset the clock and a new jury would have to be sworn in -- yet another delay, in other words. And remember, Trump is master of the legal delay.

Of course, if he does so, he could wind up sitting in a jail cell for contempt of court. The trial judge has shown little patience for Trump's nonsense to date, so when (note that: "when," not "if") Trump begins to push the boundaries of courtroom decorum he is bound to incur some sanctions of some sort or another. This could wind up being just monetary fines. But it could also result in Trump being banished from the courtroom (to sit and appear on video from another room, with the judge in charge of Trump's "mute button"). Or it could indeed be a few nights spent in jail to think things over (especially if Trump repeatedly disrupts the court even after being otherwise sanctioned). Trump may decide to go this route just so he can ramp up his claims of victimhood out on the campaign trail (he hasn't spent a single minute in jail yet and he's already out there comparing himself to Nelson Mandela, in case you missed that one).

If a mistrial does happen in any way, one would expect the second trial to begin with Trump banished to a satellite room for the entire trial, only appearing to the judge and jury via video. This will solve the problem of any random outbursts of anger from Trump, since he'd be talking to a dead microphone and no one in the courtroom would even hear him. He could rant and rave to his lawyers in the same room with him to his heart's content, and a fair trial could still happen because none of it would be heard by the people deciding his fate.

The historic nature of the first ex-president in a courtroom dock is undeniable, but it would have made a much better historical narrative if any of his other three outstanding felony cases had gone first. Trump has been charged by both the federal government and the state of Georgia with election interference, and by the federal government for his refusal to turn over national security documents even after being subpoenaed. These are serious charges that cut to the heart of national security and the bedrock of American democracy, which is why they'd all make much better entries in a history book (as "first criminal trial of an ex-president") than the case we are about to hear.

But perhaps the tawdriness of "the porn-star hush-money case" is entirely fitting for Trump's crass and classless persona. While the other cases strike to the heart of Trump violating the oath he took when sworn in as president, this one is just Trump covering his rear end in the same fashion he has used for his entire life. Pay people off to keep silent, swear none of it happened in public, and then go ahead and write the whole thing off as a business expense because no auditor will ever dig deep enough to figure it out. This is the heart of the case against Trump -- not the payoffs (which are not actually illegal) but the cover-up and financial fraud afterwards.

Of course, we'll all have plenty of time to delve into all the details of the case as it slowly unwinds. One thing that is certain is that Trump will play to the cameras as much as possible. Entering the court, going out on breaks, and leaving for the day will all have the possibility of Trump walking up to the cameras and ranting and raving about the unfairness of it all and how he's the most persecuted person in the history of the world. So even when parts of the trial itself prove to be low-key and unexciting, there will likely be feisty footage of Trump throughout the entire process. America has never seen an ex-president on trial for dozens of felonies in a criminal court, so it will indeed be a novel experience for us all.

Jury selection begins Monday. Stay tuned....

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant