TRUMP: STUPID LIKE A FOX

Before Donald Trump's most recent indictment, he engaged in some witness intimidation -- this, for instance:

This is witness tampering & obstruction of justice. Trump indicates he knows a witness is about to testify before the grand jury, & he states - unequivocally and directly - “he shouldn’t.” He just told the witness ‘he SHOULD NOT TESTIFY.’ I expect we’ll see these crimes charged. pic.twitter.com/koFRofRBiR

— Glenn Kirschner (@glennkirschner2) August 14, 2023

In response to Trump's message, Paul Campos wrote this:

A lot of people are saying that Trump’s constant violation of court orders in regard to his current and pending indictments is some sort of grand strategy.

That’s foolish, as Anton Chig[ur]h might put it. Trump is behaving this way because

(a) He has no impulse control

(b) He’s pathologically narcissistic, and these prosecutions constitute narcissistic injury

(c) He’s faced very few consequences in his life for breaking legal and social rules; and

(d) He’s really stupid.

I don't think this shows that Trump is stupid. I acknowledge that, in nearly every way, Trump is stupid -- but he's not stupid about how dominance and deference work in our depraved world. He knows that he can get away things other people can't because he's a white guy in an expensive suit, and he knows that blatantly taking advantage of this two-tiered system of justice makes him look strong and legal authorities look weak, which, in this and other cases he's facing, might impress at least one or two potential jurors more than the actual evidence against him. In other words, in this case, (d) is wrong because (c) is correct.

Or maybe this is when Trump's ability to defy authority and get away with it will come to an end. It would be awesome if at least one prosecutor were to hold him to the same standard as every other citizen, which would mean jailing his ass because he won't stop trying to intimidate witnesses, prosecutors, and judges. An unintended consequence of jailing Trump would be that he would go to 80% or 90% in the Republican primary polls, though I'm not sure it would have any impact on the general election. But in the meantime, Trump is just doing what's always worked for him -- acting as if he's above the law because, in New York for decades, he was. That may be low cunning rather than intelligence, but it's not stupidity.