You gotta laugh to keep from crying One of MSNBC’s commentators remarked Tuesday on the “thugocracy” on display at Donald Trump’s criminal trial. A parade of characters has pilgrimaged to Lower Manhattan to display their fealty to Boss Trump. On the day his defense rested, they included Chuck Zito, former convict and former leader of the New York chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. Trump likes his “heavies.” Rachel Maddow remarked: The Hells Angels leader is a very large man wearing a very flamboyant suit with a big, dyed-black pompadour, and huge, gaudy jewelry on very large hands. And he’s sitting next to Boris Epshteyn, who kind of looks like his body double. And there’s Alan Dershowitz, and there’s other recognizable people. And there’s members of Congress and well-known lawyers. And everybody seems sort of, there is a sort of performative aspect to the way they’re behaving in court. It is very noticeable for those of us who are there observing as journalists. I don’t know if they’re catching the jury’s attention so much. It’s a little, I mean, it’s not a Star Wars bar scene, but it’s a little bit of a cast of characters. Forbes provides a short list of those characters that includes former Trump advisor, Hungarian Nazi-adjacent Sebastian Gorka. But it was Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick who fronted Tuesday’s red tie brigade formation outside the courthouse. Patrick has been mentioned as a potential attorney general pick in a second Trump administration. However, he could not stick the landing…