Jerry Useem, in his phenomenal profile of Trump a quarter century ago, captured so much of the Essential Donald Trump. His article has been quoted extensively here recently, and here is another instance. Why did Trump attend as faithfully as he did, his two NY civil cases, NY AG Letitia James' civil fraud trial and the E. Jean Carroll defamation damages trial, both of which Trump lost spectacularly?

Because as others have noted, those cases, more than the criminal prosecutions, go to both Trump's self-identity and his identity to his supporters: "The cars, the private plane, the Florida estate, the beautiful girls", as Roger Stone said in 2000. This is what Trump told Useem:

In an age when wealth is paper, assets move electronically, and moguls wear jeans, Trump’s mandarin tastes and almost sensual love of money can seem a refreshing throwback. “I, personally, like feeling the asset,” he said during a stop in Silicon Valley. “With the dot-com, it’s nothing that you see so easily.”

“I like feeling the asset.” He likes to feel women, cars, planes, etc. He likes to display his assets, women, cars, planes, houses, and he wants everyone to see his name on his assets.

No jeans for him! Nor for his low-life’s, who wear them every day. “If you gonna be impo’tent, look impo’tent”, is an old joke about old men, Look virile even if you’re impotent. Dress rich even if you’re less rich in reality than you claim. Beg (check), borrow (check), and steal (check) enough money to give the appearance of the rich lifestyle of your fantasies. 

If Trump loses these assets that he can “feel” and display and which his low-life’s can see with their own eyes, if he is reduced to wearing bluejeans, figuratively; if his houses are seized, his plane repossessed, his name taken off Trump Tower, what is there to “identify” with.

I don’t think it will come to that. I think he will be bailed out before he loses what is to him and his low-life’s what is the Essential Donald Trump.