A serious look at Trump's legal situation with a dollop of snark...
by Hal Brown,
banned from Daily Kos now post exclusively on this blog.
Reading this article in Salon...
They have him surrounded: Trump now faces legal troubles in three states, plus D.C.
No one can promise Trump won't get away. But he's sweating — and he wakes up every day faced with huge legal bills
... it occurred to me that I wrote about Trump being in the center of another shape, a hexagon. My story was about the triangle of The Dark Triad. I made two illustrations, also using DonkeyHotey caricatures, to illustrate a Daily Kos story I wrote about this. Some 1,300 people read this story and there were 118 comments. I have to admit that since being banned on Kos I miss knowing this many people read and like what I write.
The caricatures of Trump of him I put in the Dark Triad shows his smug narcissism (top) and his screaming psychopathology and Machiavellianism (bottom). The caricature I put in the black box illustration for this story suggests that he is starting to feel desperation.
Of course we don't know if he really experiences a healthy response for someone in the position he's in. He's not psychology healthy so it is debatable whether he can experience what we'd consider to be a normal reaction to stress. I have my doubts he feels what we'd call normal feelings in any circumstance that goes against his deeply held belief that he is invulnerable.
In addition to skating through incidents like the Access Hollywood bus recording (more about that later) which would have derailed the prospects of any candidate he has had more lives than a proverbial cat and he even survived Covid. No wonder he thinks he's super-human.
Now things are different, even if he continues to deny it.
Not only is Trump boxed in on four sides with legal jeopardy in three states and D.C. but there are two other things going on which a normal person would worry about. One is the January 6th Committee and the other is the Department of Justice investigation. That makes six sides, a hexagon of troubles pressing in on him. Nobody knows which trouble will crush him. There's another DonkeyHotey caricature for this.
The subtitle to Truscott's article says Trump is sweating as he wakes up every day faced with high legal bills. In fact because of his narcissism and megalomania he may feel that the prospect of his going to prison is about as likely as the entitled assaulter of women getting a lap dance from Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. If he tried "getting away with it" with AOC he wouldn't be walking upright for a week.
Just an aside:
Trump actually does sweat. For example:
Sweating in 83 degree heat, despite the snarky Twitter speculation described in the article above, is probably normal for someone wearing a suit, and who knows, maybe a man girdle (I speculated about this here).
Waking up sweating isn't normal. It generally means you are psychically ill or anxious. I think it is actually possible that there are moments Trump feels fleeting pangs of anxiety over what outside observers consider to be a plight because of legal actions in four jurisdictions plus the Department of Justice and what may be revealed in the Jan. 6th Committee hearings.
I think that if anything makes Trump actually experience anxiety it isn't the possibility of prison, it's losing money. Truscott makes this important point here:
If the DOJ follows the methods it has used in previous investigations, it's likely to start small, which means that a lot of little Trumpies had better start jockeying to hire the best lawyers they can find now, rather than later.
As for Trump himself, well, your guess is as good as mine. But right now, he's looking a lot like Custer at Little Bighorn – surrounded on all sides with no way out. He's been there before when he faced two impeachments, but many of the people who defended him then, including his former White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, have already testified before grand juries investigating Trump and cannot be counted on to have his back this time.
I don't know about you, but if I were waking up every morning and writing checks to lawyers — even super PAC checks — I wouldn't be a happy camper. At this point, I'm thinking that maybe what they call a global plea deal made by Trump, to wrap up all his federal and state criminal investigations in return for not running for president, might be his best bet. Right now it looks like if he doesn't make such a deal, he might lose his golf, his money and his freedom.
Trump may or may not run for president. If he runs he could win the primary. As frightening as it is to even consider, he could win a second term. None of these are sure things.
And then there's this:
"One thing, however, is certain. Trump is facing huge legal bills and he will have more and more trouble convincing donors to money up money to help fund a loser fighting a losing cause." Them Hartmann
There may yet be another shoe yet to drop. It may be a big one. It may be a heavy boot. Thom Hartmann address it in this article:
When Trump is finally revealed as an agent of foreign governments will America wake up?
A final bit of snark
(with apologies to real snark hunters):
Trump may think he's a real cowboy. In truth he's as real a cowboy as the Marlboro Man was. If he tries to park his imaginary stallion here this is what will happen:
No comments:
Post a Comment