Trump's Trial is Making Him Look Weak

For the wannabe strongman, looking weak is worse than looking like a crook

Underneath the trial minutia and mounting evidence of former President Donald Trump is a raging debate about the political impact of the trial. I weighed in last week after I became very annoyed at people arguing that the trial could help Trump. How much it will hurt him and in which ways are up for discussion. Nevertheless, it is absurd to believe that being on trial for falsifying business records to cover up an extramarital affair with an adult film star would be a net positive (perhaps, I am still annoyed). In all of the discussion about how persuadable voters are consuming the allegations and would react to a hypothetical conviction, I think we are missing the forest for the trees.

The political damage to Trump is not what is said in the courtroom; it’s how he looks. After spending his whole life and three presidential campaigns cultivating an image of power and strength, the first week of the trial made the former president look weak, tired, and scared.

More than any testimony or even a conviction, the image of the former president sitting silently and sadly at the defense table, stripped of the pomp and circumstance upon which he has relied, could be his final undoing.