Saturday, January 20, 2024

Strategery

I really don’t think we should be giving Trump any credit for any level of strategy above “feral.” Or a five-year old.
There is no strategy, it is just all emotional," he told the MSNBC hosts. "It's is all — look, it is bragging and lying and intimidating and bullying. That is literally those are the things that he does. And there he is trying to bully. There he is just angry at being held accountable." "He is like a -- he is a five-year-old, okay?" Conway exclaimed before adding, "Except intellectually more challenged than most five-year-olds. He is emotionally stunted at five years old and he throws tantrums. And this is a big tantrum. This is him just showing frustration" 
"Psychologically, he is so damaged, he cannot help himself, he is hurting himself," he continued. "I mean, Alinna Habba, as terrible a lawyer as she is, she is doing some stuff that actually makes sense." 
"She is trying to minimize his [Trump's] effect on her [E. Jean Carroll]," he added by pointing to Habba's questioning in the Carroll defamation trial. "For example, I mean it's nonsense, but 'Oh there were five hours before the president made a comment in 2019 where people were attacking you. So it wasn't really Donald Trump who was causing you harm.' It's nonsense, so she is trying to minimize the effect that he had on her [Carroll], and then he is there making these comments in open court, holding a press conference outside, and posting on stuff at two in the morning that completely undoes what they are trying to do."
Certainly lines up with the public record. And it’s not like “playing” demented is going to present him as any more fit to be POTUS.

Let me ameliorate that with this addition:
Getting right into it with the hosts of MSNBC's "The Weekend,' [George] Conway explained, "When you see little clips of him, you kind of think you know, it's reality TV. He's silly, he's harmless, it's just nonsense and he just does his thing, he does his schtick. But when you see him up close and in person you start to realize there's something seriously wrong with him." 
"And that's what happens with his own people," he continued before recalling, "Remember how his chief of staff, General Kelly, brought in a book, like the psychiatrists had written about Donald Trump, saying he was completely out of his mind, and he [Kelly] is like, 'This is the key. We could figure this out!'" 
"People learn, there is something seriously wrong with this guy, and I think what this jury is going to learn, which is like you are in this solemn proceeding you are taking this seriously, and jurors generally don't look at scams and people behaving badly in the courtroom, and here, they have this psychopath sitting right there," he elaborated. "It's got to be off-putting and scary, and just appalling to them, because they were actually seeing him in the flesh, this real person, not this caricature on TV, this self-caricature on TV. They're seeing the face, the face literally, of evil right there."
Clips of Trump do make it seem Trump is silly; or harmless; or even demented. Evil is another step, and Conway is arguing you only see that in person. 

If he’s right, it means Trump is really headed to a world of hurt in the criminal cases to come. And all the hand-wringers fretting over the damage they think Trump will do to the judicial system will have to reconsider the power and authority of the jury, and that not everything worth knowing is available in the media or on the internet. 

Because the jury will meet Trump personally; not passed through a camera lens or reduced to video clips. I remember the stories of the fans of Sen. Phil Gramm when he ran for the GOP nomination. In New Hampshire he had to engage retail politics (something he didn’t have to do in Texas). His fans were anxious to meet him, but so repulsed when they did Gramm’s own aides would cut the meetings short. Gramm withdrew after New Hampshire, IIRC.

And the jurors won’t be fans of Trump eager for a one-on-one.
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