Donald Trump is trying to finish himself off
I said awhile back that Donald Trump’s indictment and arrest would begin the process of dismantling him (and erasing what little might be left of his political viability) before he even gets to trial. What I meant was that the process of awaiting trial on serious felony charges is psychologically and pragmatically difficult for anyone, and far more so for an unstable narcissist who’s simultaneously trying to fake a presidential campaign. If anything I was expecting Trump to begin dismantling himself before anyone else could do it for him.
Sure enough, we’re now seeing that. Trump was specifically told by a federal judge that any improper actions on his part would result in escalating consequences that would eventually lead to pretrial detention. Predictably, it took Trump all of one day to make a threatening post on social media. Just as predictably, it then took Jack Smith only a few hours to seize upon Trump’s very stupid move, with a court filing citing precisely that social media post.
Even as far too many observers on our side are sitting back and nervously saying “Oh no, Trump is making threatening posts, he’s getting away with it all, we’re doomed,” in reality precisely the opposite is playing out. There it literally no such thing as a defendant thumbing their nose at the judge presiding over their criminal trial and “getting away with it.” That’s not something that has happened, or ever will happen.
This Trump post alone will ensure that Jack Smith’s request for an immediate protective order is granted. It may also prompt the judge to issue a formal warning to Trump that while this one social media post isn’t grounds for throwing a defendant in jail until trial, a series of such posts will be grounds for tossing Trump in the clink.
Folks on our side will still insist that Trump is “getting away with it all” because the judge isn’t pressing a button on her desk and sending Trump through an instant trap door in the floor. Nothing works that way. But criminal defendants don’t magically get away with thumbing their noses at their trial judges either. There’s a process by which judges incrementally hand out escalating consequences, like a misbehaving student who starts off getting detention and ends up getting expelled.
Meanwhile Jack Smith has got to be celebrating tonight. This self destructive idiot Donald Trump is making Smith’s job very easy with these kinds of social media posts. The more Trump misbehaves, the more the judge is going to crack down on Trump before we even get to trial.
Really, let’s all stop being so skittish. Donald Trump’s Truth Social post didn’t hurt any of us. It didn’t put us in “danger” no matter how many times that word gets repeated on MSNBC. It doesn’t mean Trump is somehow more powerful than ever. Our democracy is not doomed because Trump said some mean words. But Trump’s post sure did hurt Trump. This is a man who is, for whatever psychologically flawed reason, trying to destroy himself. We might as well just grab some popcorn and watch him do it.
