Trump fidgets
Trump had to wait, just like any humble mortal waiting for a bus.
Donald Trump is not a man used to waiting.
But at a court hearing in the nation’s capital, the former US president found himself fidgeting in his seat while he waited 20 minutes for the judge to arrive.
Nobody thought to bring a coloring book and crayons?
The latest indictment stems from his alleged role in plotting to overturn the 2020 election results. He faces four counts: conspiracy to defraud, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.
Federal prosecutors allege he knowingly and repeatedly spread false claims about the 2020 election, and, along with several unnamed co-conspirators, took unlawful measures in a bid to stay in power.
There’s a tricky element here, which is the question: can it ever be truly said that Trump knows anything? Is that a state of mind that even exists for him? Is it possible that he’s so entrenched in the habit of making shit up that he’s just not familiar with “knowing” something? That he’s not familiar with it in the same way humans are not familiar with what it feels like to fly?
A truly shocking oversight, deliberate or otherwise. Someone should clearly be loicked up for a long stretch; with or without colouring-in stuff to divert his tiny mind. With.
Or a Sharpie and a weather map.
Judges are like wizards. They are never late, nor are they early, but arrive precisely when they mean to.
I’ve always suspected that Trump simply considers truth or falsity irrelevant – you might as well ask whether he was facing northeast when he said something as ask whether he was deliberately lying. He says what he says for effect only. It may matter to him whether the listener believes he’s telling the truth, but for himself, I doubt he gives it a nanosecond’s thought.
That’s much the same as the question I was asking. I wonder if he knows what truth is.
I believe that Trump is a bullshitter in the Frankfurtian sense. He (mostly) knows what’s true. He doesn’t care.
But how do we know he mostly knows what’s true?
We can’t know for sure. I just think it’s the hypothesis that best fits his pattern as a con artist from way back.
Yes but the thought I was wrestling with is that he’s not like your average con artist – he’s not like anyone’s average anything. I’m not sure he fits into familiar categories.
(But some con artists do come to believe their own lies, at least kinda sorta, I think. I once read a book by a former medium who attested to that.)
I dunno. Maybe the difference is just in his level of success.
Some con artists are simply lying, of course. But we agree that whatever Trump’s doing goes beyond that.
I think most con artists manage to believe at least some of their lies, using whatever part of the brain we use when we manage to kid ourselves. This is especially true when there’s a lot of unsolicited positive feedback — “you cured my arthritis!” “You’re such a generous benefactor!” “That was a brilliant essay!” and so on. We want to believe this.
Keep in mind that from way back Trump was one of the people who endorsed the idea that Positive Thinking can actually bring forth the actuality. Not just in the sense of encouraging you to work towards a goal, but in the more magical sense of causing the Universe to manifest your will. When young he attended Norman Vincent Peale’s church, and I think the Rev Peale presided at his first marriage. Later he apparently bought in to all that guff surrounding The Secret, with its assurances that The Rich and Powerful were especially adept at bending reality with their minds. Then there were all the Prosperity Gospel preachers and believers fawning over him during his presidency, assuring him he was The Anointed of God.
Under all those circumstances, I think it would take both a very cool head and impressively clear intellect to remember and keep straight that you lied and you’re lying and you will lie because you’re a fraud. Trump doesn’t impress me as having either.
Sastra, that’s very interesting. I didn’t know that about Trump. He may be adept at magical thinking. That’s closer to Ophelia’s idea than mine–though I still think if he ever does recognize truth when he stumbles across it, he doesn’t care about it (unless it should happen to serve his purposes.)
I didn’t know that either. Innnnteresting.
Also of course he’s just stupid, which probably doesn’t help him grasp what “truth” means.
It seems to me that it is simply that Trump does not care what he says, or whether it is true or not, so long as it gains him an advantage. If telling the truth will gain him an advantage, he’ll tell the truth, if telling a lie will gain him an advantage, he’ll tell a lie. Truth or falsehood – it just doesn’t matter to him, so long as he gains some advantage. His favoured tactic is a sort of confabulation – you can see his mind at work when he’s put on the defensive in an interrogation or interview and reaches for something that he supposes might sound plausible as a defence – if not to his interlocutor, then to his supporters. I think he is perfectly aware that he is not telling the truth, but is wholly cynical when it comes to defending his ‘precious’ – that is, his own self. He comes up with something that he thinks sounds plausible, and then runs with that, pouring out more and more words in its support.
In any event, his state of mind (such as it is) is surely legally irrelevant, as I think Jack Smith has made clear, when he resorts to criminal activity to further his interests.
I remember many years ago, when I was back one summer in London, being accosted on the street by a man who was probably in his thirties and being given a sob-story (which I didn’t believe) and asked for money; I gave a bit. This prompted another sob-story and a further request for money, so I gave him a bit more. ‘Ah, I’ve got a real mark here’ was the thought you could see, blatantly, on his face, and he at once launched into another story – it was his little daughter’s birthday, and he wanted to buy her a present. I told him he should be thankful for what he had got, and stop taking me for a fool.
Gollum J. Trump
And talking about confabulators, Nick Cohen has a very good piece entitled ‘The proto-Fascism of Elon Musk: Libertarianism turns rancid’ on his website ‘Writing from London’, in which he quotes Sartre on anti-Semites: “They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words.”
Musk, Trump, Johnson, Bannon… all very frivolous people.
I found the Nick Cohen piece in the Internet Archive, and it is excellent. Thanks for pointing it out.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230518204007/https://nickcohen.substack.com/p/the-proto-fasicsm-of-elon-musk
Thank you, Sackbut! I’m hopeless about links!
I should also add that when Trump ‘confabulates’, once he gets going, he moves rapidly into a mode of bullying confidence as he repeats and repeats himself in a way that is daring the interlocutor to disagree with him. Sastra mentioned above ‘Positive Thinking’ and the Reverend Peale, but I suspect the greatest influence on Gollum J. Trump was Roy Cohn.
Sorry about all these comments, but I have just come across Fintan O’Toole’s characteristically brilliant essay on Jack Smith’s excellent indictment and the question of ‘mens rea’ in the New York Review of Books. I recommend it. It includes this passage:
‘Trump’s relationship to his fan base is rooted in knowingness—which is not at all the same as knowledge. Knowingness is collusive. It rests on the understanding by his listeners that there is a game in which they are players, a willingness to make allowances for—and delight in—exaggerations, provocations, and luridly entertaining lies.
‘There is a kind of creativity in this destabilization of the difference between lies and truth. Smith cites in the indictment an e-mail written by an unnamed Arizona attorney who was being recruited by Co-Conspirator 5 (generally taken to be the Trump legal adviser Kenneth Chesebro) into the scheme to create fake electors, in which he or she calls the plan “kind of wild/creative.” There is a sense of fun about the whole thing. Such playfulness may appall anyone who considers the fundamental nature of what is at stake, but its importance to Trump’s power should not be overlooked.’
Don’t be sorry about comments! Good comments are not apology-worthy.