TRUMP'S ABSURD LEGAL STRATEGY

I'll quote Tom again, and this time I have to acknowledge that he was right:

So apparently Trump's lawyers won't be presenting any witnesses in his defamation trial, I guess just relying on the spectacularly ineffective cross-examination of E. Jean Carroll to make their case. Maybe the plan is to get the verdict overturned on appeal, on the basis of incompetent counsel? I mean, there must be a plan, right?

I think there was a plan -- not a smart plan, but a plan dictated by Trump's personality and demons. I assume he thought he might win even without putting on a case, hoping that misogyny would prevail, along with a belief that he would seem to the jury like too mighty a figure to have done something like this (even though he knows he actually did it).

But I also assume he knew he might lose -- and he preferred to lose looking arrogant than risk losing while looking weak. To him, looking weak would be putting on a case, claiming innocence, offering a counternarrative -- and allowing that narrative to be challenged in open court. He thought it was better to lose with swagger (which is what he thinks he's done) than risk losing after being openly challenged. He preferred to increase the odds of losing if it meant not looking weak in the moment, and now he can tell his gullible fans that the whole thing was a farce and a fraud, so of course he didn't participate, and he holds his head high, even though a jury concluded that he's a sexual abuser and he's out five million dollars.

Trump is 76 years old. The father who terrorized him and thus made him fanatical about avoiding the appearance of weakness died more than 23 years ago. And he still can't relax.