Donald Trump's legal "strategy" in his fraud trial testimony

 Yesterday, Donald J. Trump trump-ed all over the witness stand during his civil fraud trial, leaving quite a mess for the janitorial staff.  I hope that they are well compensated, but I doubt that they are.  Let us consider.  From an outcome-based perspective, was his conduct the utility-maximizing conduct?  Yes.  Trump has already lost the case.  Engoron already issued a summary judgment on the question of fraud, and Trump has no case whatsoever.  The fraud was so blatant, and so indisputable that Engoron's ruling was that there was no point in even bothering with a trial on the question of facts.  When you list your penthouse apartment as triple its actual size in order to falsify its value, just as one example, you did it.  No question, no defense.  There is absolutely no possible legal defense.  The only question was ever going to be the penalty, and even there, Trump's conduct is so egregiously fraudulent that it was never really in question what Engoron would do.  Trump has already lost the case.  So, from an outcome-based perspective, can he use that?  If he comported himself with dignity, what would happen?  He would lose the case anyway, and his cultists would be disappointed by the lack of Trump temper-tantrums and rage-tweets.  The temper-tantrums and rage-tweets are why they would sacrifice their first-borns and all subsequent children to him.  By continuing, he maintains his cult, and their loyalty.  He ensures their devotion, makes a mockery of the 2024 Republican nomination contest, and ensures that even if he loses against Biden, there will be a fervent attempt to steal the election on his behalf.  Yes, this is the utility-maximizing set of tactics.

But notice my wording, or rather, typing.  I put "strategy" in snark-quotes.  Is Donald Trump writing out a game tree with his Sharpie, engaging in Bayesian reasoning, calculating expected utilities, and such?  No.  He simply has no self-control.  His rage and loss of self-control are real.  That, after all, is precisely why his cultists truly love him.  They can recognize the authentic, childish psychopathy, and that is what appeals to them.  Fake it, fake a temper-tantrum, and we can tell, like a bad actor.  Trump is not a good actor.  He's just a psychopathic child, who arrived on the political scene at a time when one party craved a psychopathic child.

Anti-social personality disorder, as we now call it.  One of the central features of the diagnosis is a lack of impulse control.  That is why Trump truly cannot control himself, in any way.  It is not merely a bad temper.  It is a lack of impulse control.  He cannot strategize because he lacks impulse control.

Is this strategy?  Or, is this merely the coincidence of behavior from one who cannot strategize, who happens to appeal to those who crave the lowest behavior?

I write frequently about Lucius Seneca, and Donald J. Trump is quite a challenge to Seneca.  Trump is the literal opposite of everything virtuous, not only by Seneca's philosophy, but by every philosophy except maybe Anton LaVey.  Beyond that, though, he challenges Seneca's notion that people generally recognize and praise authentic virtue.  Trump is anti-virtue, personified.  He is vice, embodied.  He is the avatar of psychopathy.  And yet, nearly half of the country not only loves him, but loves him for precisely his psychopathy.

Seneca was an optimist.  Yet, it is as though Nero returned, and he were popular precisely for his most cruel, vicious, childish characteristics.  Can one see the world through Seneca's optimistic eyes?  As one sees these theatrics work, precisely for their lack of virtue?

This is not in your control.  Those deceived are not in your control, and they harm themselves.  Can you help them?  Probably not.  What is in your control?  Clarity.  Clarity and independence.  Beyond that, Nero and his followers will burn the political world, but you have clarity and independence.  To the degree that you can help one, you have done good.  Most will be their own undoing.

Notice how furious Donald Trump is at all times.  Does he look happy to you?  He has built his own hell, and he has spent a lifetime burning in it.

JJ Grey & Mofro, "The Hottest Spot In Hell," from Georgia Warhorse.