Trump’s Entire Campaign Strategy Is the Worst Possible Legal One!

That’s some catch, that Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

I’ve spent most of the day trying and failing to write an article about just how terrified Trump is all of a sudden.  How terrified?  He’s actually paying attention to his lawyers and for the moment at least following their advice!  For example as this Associated Press article notes he’s cancelled that Monday news conference, on his attorney’s advice.  On his attorney’s advice?  What manner of madness is this?  Well, that was my own reaction.  In addition to that Newsweek reports Trump won’t take part in next week’s (or presumably any) GOP debate, say “Reagan didn’t do it.”  Uh, Donnie?  You ain’t Ronnie and your circumstances are way different (worse) than his were!

Now, I’ve been saying for a while Trump was in a pickle because he was scared of being onstage live with Chris Christie.  Capable of being every bit as ruthless and mean-spirited to be sure, but deep inside where he hates admitting it even to himself Trump knows Christie is both way smarter and way quicker on his feet given his experience not just in debates but in courtrooms as a prosecutor.  And Christie has far more ammo to aim at Trump than he does at Christie.  At the same time, Trump’s ego, being called a coward for not showing up might not play well with MAGAs.  And citing Reagan?  Thirty, or perhaps even twenty  years ago that might have flown with rank & file MAGAs but Reagan long cease to be “Saint Ronald” in the GOP.  Especially all those white working class folks.

Now however I think something has overtaken that, and it’s the same thing that caused Trump to cancel his press conference on the advice of his lawyers.  You probably know the Miranda warning by heart.  Including the “Anything you can can and will be used against you in a court of law.”  Even before his first arrest and booking Trump had a f**kton of public pronouncements, both verbal statements at rallies and during interviews, and press releases social media posts that are considered evidence that can be admitted at trial.  So, in addition to all that other evidence, there’s plenty that Trump himself has provided of his criminal acts!  However, it gets worse for him.

He was formally warned by judge Chutkan during his DC arraignment about certain things.  DC has pretty strict rules about what criminal defendants can & can’t say or do and among them is trying to influence witness and make threatening statements.  Trump has done BOTH since then, including some vile and inflammatory statements against Atlanta DA Fani Willis, judge Chutkan herself and others.  That includes a post urging a witness who had evidence harmful to him not to show up and testify.  I can hear Ricky in an old I Love Lucy episode saying “Donnie… You got some splainin to do!”

Trump is going to face two judges who already have grounds to sanction him.  If he were anyone else he’d be locked up, at least for a while to make a point.  And if that didn’t teach him his lesson he’d be locked up until trial.  Sadly, he knows THAT won’t happen but he might well be fined and face other sanctions.  For damned sure he’s going to get a set of marching orders and admit to the judge he understands them and the consequences of not following them.  But worst of all was something judge Chutkan has already said, not behaving himself will result in getting his trial date move up instead of delayed!  That’s the last thing Trump wants to happen and he’s already provided some good ground that will hold up on appeal for judge Chutkan to do exactly that, in as she put it the interests of justice.

So what’s this Catch-22 I spoke of?

It’s one of Trump’s own making.  As the title says, his ENTIRE campaign strategy is to whip up his MAGA base into a frenzy and lock up the nomination by Super Tuesday.  The rest of the GOP will have to (bitterly, knowing what it will cost in November) fall in line.  He figured he’d worry about attracting more than the MAGAs later.  And count on GOPers in Congress and statehouses and some (not all but it doesn’t take many as we’ve seen) f**king things up enough that he can blame messes on Biden.  An awful lot of voters are after either stupid or lazy.  Or both.

However, MAGA is a beast that needs a continual diet of fresh helpings of red meat.  Not just fresh helpings, but NEW cuts of meat.  The “good stuff” like prime rib.  Given the decrease in rally attendance and seeing people leave after a half-hour or so of the same old sh*t Trump knows he’s got to go bigger.  Toss out even crazier bat-sh*t insane stuff to keep MAGA fed and energetic.

And that’s his problem.

Trump learned much of how to be who he is from the legendary sleaze Roy Cohn who lest we forget served on Senator Joseph McCarthy back in the day.  Yes, THAT McCarthy.  For a while, McCarthy got away with what he did because when he was cornered he’d pull some completely new, even more outrageous accusation against someone out of his azz and journalists would gasp and scatter to try and check it out!  Sound familiar?

So Trump designed his entire campaign around the them of the 2020 election having been stolen from him and MAGA.  He knew they were growing tired of the same old stock routine but he wasn’t worried.  Cohn had taught him all too well what to do and he was all set to, once primary season rolled around to ramp up his act with new material.  Fresh red meat for MAGAs to feast on!  Even the first couple of indictments didn’t affect him.  The NYC case was Stormy Daniels.  Old news.  And though it involves grave national security implications the news business insisting on calling it a mere “documents” case takes too much sting out of it.  Plus, he’s got a lapdog judge who would probably slit Kari Lake’s throat in a heartbeat to be Trump’s secret “squeeze.”

But DC was his wakeup call.  It didn’t matter who got assigned.  All of the federal judges are solid jurists with excellent credentials and experience.  AND plenty of experience with January 6 defendants and the issues involved.  It’s a Circuit chock full of no-nonsense judges who like to move cases along, and with an appellate court that can and will move quickly when it needs to backing them up delaying was going to be tough.  Plus, I don’t think Trump realized until his lawyers started trying to penetrate his thick skull that DC had tighter rules for defendants than most jurisdictions.

He knows it now.

Trump seems to now know the ONE thing he can’t go doing is to make up new bogus claims about 2020 election fraud and/or attack witnesses, prosecutors and the judge.  And don’t be surprised if he’s given a warning that he’d better start denouncing anyone else that makes threats.  Or be seen having anything at all to do with those who keep pusshing his Big Lie.  That ALL of that is admissible as evidence against him at trial.  Trump also knows he’s already screwed the pooch and he and his lawyers were probably trying to plan out a mea culpa of some sort.  Of course, they screwed the pooch again by requesting that ridiculous trial date so clearly while Trump is following some legal advice he’s still over ruling his lawyers some.  For some reason I think judge Chutkan, as well as his judge in Fulton County might doubt the sincerity of his apology for having made the attacks and threats he’s made, and his attempt to convince a witness not to testify!

The bottom line is that the very thing Trump needs to do to rile up his base to ensure his nomination even if he spends much of the primary season in courtrooms he knows he can’t do!  Saying increasingly outrageous and false things will be furtherance of the crimes for which he’s already been indicted for!  Catch-22, and the best part it’s one of Trump’s own making.

That’s some catch that Catch-22.

That epiphany was however only the start of my mental musings that led me to scrap that p.o.s. article I kept re-drafting and try this instead.  I kept thinking about an old saying of “luck is the residue of design.”  That applies to good luck as well as bad.  Put bluntly, we often make both our good and bad luck by our choices and actions.  Trump has misspent his life to get him to this point, and once he sharted his way down his fake gold escalator in Trump Tower started dragging the entire GOP establishment along with the rank and file into his toxic MAGA world.   Even if they don’t realize it they are in a hell of their own making.

You know what I think?  I’ve written sometimes about poor old Irony and Karma.  How Trump, and MAGA killed them but keep digging them up and going Dr. Frankenstein on them to be able to flog them to death again.  Both got sick and tired of it and found themselves sitting together in the bar owned by Destiny swapping “You think THAT was bad what he/they did to YOU… Well how about THIS?” stories and Destiny was tending bar and listening.

Destiny sympathized with them both and said “Tell you what.  The two of you team up and come up with a plan to screw Trump and MAGA back and let me know what you come up with.”  So Irony and Karma put their heads together and came up with a doozy that incorporated the best (or worst depending on which side someone is on) of their characteristics.  After all the chances the GOP had to dump Trump they came up with a way to screw Trump sideways but the whole goddam GOP with him.

The plan was to oh so gently, so much he wouldn’t hear their whispers in his dreams got him to not just run on his Big Lie, but make it even bigger.  To FORCE obedience from all GOPers, force them to publicly sew their lips to his fat orange azz.   And, despite the complexity of the DC case fix it so Jack Smith had a way to whittle things way the hell down, and convince HIM to go with that option.  A limited set of DC charges with six unindicted co-conspirators that could be gotten to after Trump got taken care of – in fairly short order as in before the primaries ramped up.  In front of one of those notoriously no-nonsense DC federal judges that would be taking any sh*t from Trump.  Get him convicted long before the primaries were over and force a wholesale panic in the GOP.

When they presented the plan to Destiny the reaction was “not bad” and then Irony and Karma said “but we haven’t told you the best part!”  They went on to explain that the way it would play out would be like a slow motion train wreck, and that folks like Mitch McConnell and other old guard types, and even Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News would all see what was coming, that they would get mangled in the wreck too and not be able to do a damned thing about it!”

Destiny was mightily impressed.  So much so that a decree went out into his realm that the TV would be tuned to our station and that drinks and popcorn would be on the house for all in the realm.

That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

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