Josh Marshall, TPM, watches the hush money/ election interference trial through the Malignant Loser's lens of the dominating and the dominated and sees this:
"... Nothing puts you more squarely in the bucket of the dominated than being a defendant in a criminal trial and at risk of losing your freedom. The state makes its case against you and you have to sit there and take it. In case there was any question, the judge told Trump you have to be here in my court and sit here. A dozen randomly picked people hold your fate in their hands. You have to make your case, an actual case. Bullshit and attitude, Trump’s coins of the realm, could work. Unless those twelve people decide it doesn’t.
"Seeing Trump sitting there, even on this least weighty prosecution, you get a sense of why he’s fought so tooth and nail to avoid this. The biggest and most obvious reason is that he doesn’t want to go to jail. That is certainly a sufficient reason. But it’s not the whole story. At the most basic level, sitting in the dock is horribly and perhaps even fatally off brand. Trump’s brand is swagger and impunity. Always be dominating. Until you’re not."
As the trial grinds on through jury selection, then the trial itself, we'll be watching for this dynamic, as being in the "dominated bucket" four days a week for months wears on Sleepy Don.
