Donald Trump Hates Being Humiliated. His Plan for Revenge Aligns Perfectly with the Christian Nationalist Authoritarian Movement in America.

Trump’s image is taking a hit as the Manhattan trial continues. On Monday and Tuesday this week Trump was reportedly snoozing again during the duller parts of the trial as the prosecution elicited testimony from witnesses to establish the authenticity of evidence being presented to the jury. Trump reportedly falls asleep when the testimony is not about him. The late night hosts are having a field day.

There are numerous reports from people in the room that Trump farts a lot. There are also some reports from people in the courtroom that Trump pooped in his pants. The smell was really bad according to people in the room. The accident was obvious when Trump got up from his chair. This has not been reported out by mainstream media, but Michael Cohen has been trolling Trump about this problem he seems to have. Cohen’s social media post on this topic was actually read into the court record.

ACNN panel of analysts and anchors broke out into laughter Thursday as Jake Tapper read a social media post from Michael Cohen, former President Trump’s onetime attorney, using vulgar language to blast Trump.

“Okay … I apologize for this update ahead of time, but Todd Blanche, the Trump attorney, is specifically reading a post that Michael Cohen made on Twitter on April 22nd, in which he refers to Donald Trump as Von Schitzenpants,” Tapper said during CNN’s coverage of Trump’s hush money trial.

The information got into the public record because Trump’s defense attorneys say Trump has a right to attack Cohen since Cohen is attacking Trump on social media.

Trump is, after all, an old man, not the superman his followers want to believe him to be. Maybe he suffers from fecal incontinence.

Trump also looks bad in the courtroom, slumped over in his chair at the defense table. He’s tired and haggard. Until recently, no one from Trump’s family has been by his side in court. Trump was sitting there alone with an empty row of seats behind him– his secret service detail seated behind that empty row of seats. This week his son, Eric, showed up. But you have to wonder where the rest of his family is when they could be supporting him in that courtroom.

Even though Trump has used social media to beg his followers to show up at the courthouse, there have been very few of them who responded. Only one woman showed up outside the courthouse on Friday acting crazy and aggressive.

Trump just doesn’t look much like a strongman these days. He is being humiliated. Some key witnesses in this trial are in a class of slimy people who are not honorable, reputable or role models, but Trump swam in that swamp. Michael Cohen is one of the swamp creatures. And there are others.
WHAT CAME OUT THIS PAST WEEK

One of the witnesses who testified on Thursday was Keith Davidson, a sleazy lawyer who had represented Stormy Daniels. He was cross-examined by the defense about using extortionist tactics to get people to pay to avoid being exposed by the clients who hire him as their lawyer to get them money to stay silent. Trump’s attorney unwittingly helped the prosecution to establish one of the toughest aspects of their case:

Trump’s lawyer asked Keith Davidson, an attorney who used to represent (Stormy) Daniels, about her apparent motive in seeking money to keep secret an alleged affair she had with the former president.

The defense attorney brought out that Daniels would lose all ‘leverage’ if the story wasn’t purchased before the election. That was supposed to make it sound like extortion and damage the witness, but it actually helped the prosecution: the story had value to Trump only [because] of its ability to influence the election.

Why did that testimony help the prosecution? The prosecution has to prove that the falsified documents were falsified because the goal of the scheme was to help Trump win the 2016 election. That’s necessary to make the misdemeanor counts rise to the level of felony counts.

Hope Hicks testified on Friday. Her testimony exposed what was happening behind the scenes of the Trump campaign as the Access Hollywood tape came out. The campaign went into overdrive to counter the hit to Trump’s (false) image as a moral family man. Her testimony under oath went to the heart of the prosecution case that the financial documents were falsified with the goal of helping Trump win the election with especially two key points. 1) Trump told her that Cohen had paid Stormy Daniels out of the goodness of his heart (not at Trump’s own direction), and she said Trump’s statement about Cohen was not believable to her since she knew Cohen was not that sort of a guy. 2) She recounted that Trump said to her it was good that the Stormy Daniels story had broken when it did and not before the election. That statement tells the jury that the payment of hush money was about the election, not just about keeping Melania in the dark about Stormy Daniels.
TRUMP’S DARK PLAN FOR REVENGE

So far, the Manhattan election interference case is going in very well for the prosecution. Trump is said to be angry with his lead attorney, and pushing him to be more aggressive- as if aggression were the way to combat the truth that is coming out about him. It isn’t. Trump has to be feeling more and more aggrieved and angry about the way the image he built for himself is being damaged. He is all about image. The superhero image he has worked hard to create with his followers does not include paying off a porn star and a Playboy bunny, or the farting, haggard, pants pooping truth about the sordid old man facing criminal charges in a Manhattan courtroom.

Humiliation fires up Trump’s need for retribution and revenge.

To make himself feel better as he goes through this humiliating experience, he is almost certainly imagining himself in the future as a glorious dictator-in-chief. Trump would feel vindicated if he can win back the power of the presidency and destroy his enemies which includes disloyal Republicans, mainstream media and those who unmasked him.

We know Trump can be energized in response to humiliation. He responded to humiliation by Barack Obama at the White House Correspondents Dinner by running for president. Like Nixon before him, Trump has an enemies list. If he wins, Trump will pursue revenge and retribution.

Trump’s need for revenge aligns perfectly with the Christian Nationalist vision for America that Project 2025 promotes (see below). That aligned vision allows Trump to campaign as an openly fascist, would-be dictator. He is making retribution the cause celebre of his base by saying his revenge is their revenge.
IF TRUMP WINS AGAIN

If Trump wins re-election all of us will lose because we will lose our democracy. He and Project 2025 have promised that. He will force the country to become what is called an illiberal democracy which is where the country is a pretend democracy, and a real dictatorship. Women and girls of childbearing age will be targets of the regressive anti-abortion plans of the rabid right. Trump has been saying it will be up to the states to enact whatever laws they want to have on abortion, but there is a zombie law waiting to be re-vitalized that is already on the books. That law could create a national abortion ban on Day One of a Trump administration if Trump chose to implement it. It is the Comstock Act.

The Comstock Act of 1873 was the product of a vice reformer, Anthony Comstock, who lobbied Congress in 1873, and the law was passed in March of 1873, so we’re looking at 150 years now just last month. And the law essentially criminalized anything having to do with sex at the federal level, and that included instruments that could be used for the prevention of conception or to procure abortion.

That law could be immediately re-activated to prevent the use of the US mail to distribute any form of contraception or abortion medication currently used by women across the country. Since Trump needs evangelical voters, who make up the bulk of the Republican base, to continue to support him, Trump would very likely invoke the Comstock Act if he is elected to keep that crucial part of his base happy.

Even without the Comstock Act being invoked, if Trump wins, elected officials in red states will be allowed to pass laws that permit state government to monitor the menstrual cycle of every female of childbearing age and then force women to carry to term if they get pregnant. Don’t believe me? Read what Trump himself said in a wide-ranging interview done by Time Magazine:

Based on two interviews with TIME magazine totaling more than 80 minutes, you can no longer ignore Trump’s intentions:

On whether states should monitor women’s pregnancies so they can know if they’ve gotten an abortion that violates a ban (say, after 15 weeks of pregnancy): “I think they might do that. Again, you’ll have to speak to the individual states.” (President Biden tweeted about that quote: “This is reprehensible.&rdquo
On political violence in connection with the upcoming election: “I don’t think we’re going to have that. I think we’re going to win. And if we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”
On using the military to deport migrants who cross illegally: “Well, these aren’t civilians. These are people that aren’t legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country.”
On launching the largest deportation operation in American history: “Because we have no choice. I don’t believe this is sustainable for a country, what’s happening to us.”
On using the military against protesters: “I would use certainly the National Guard, if the police were unable to stop. I would absolutely use the National Guard.” He then mentioned an executive order he signed to encourage prosecution of anyone who desecrates national monuments.
On using Schedule F power to fire civil servants: “You have some people that are protected that shouldn’t be protected. And you have some people you almost want to protect because they do such a good job.”
On pardoning every one of the people convicted of participating in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol: “I would consider that, yes. … Yes, absolutely.”
On whether he might fire a U.S. attorney who didn’t prosecute someone on his orders: “It would depend on the situation. Yeah.”
On “anti-white racism” protections: “I think there is a definite anti-white feeling in this country, and that can’t be allowed.”
On disbanding the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, established under President Biden: “I think I would. … I think it sounds good politically, but I think it’s a very expensive solution.”

Between the lines: TIME, in the cover story going on sale May 17, calls Trump’s responses “the outlines of an imperial presidency…”
WHY THIS TRIAL MATTERS

The reason the current trial is important no matter what the outcome is, is that it unmasks the real Trump and reminds us not only the chaos but also the corruption of Trump in office. Trump pretends he is moral and following the laws, but he is forever cheating behind the scenes to hide who he really is, get the power he wants and make more money. He blames others for his own foibles. Many Americans have forgotten how bad Trump was as president or think they will benefit if he returns to power.

It is hard for corporate leaders or White people, or even people of color, like Justice Thomas, who think they have been “accepted” by the powers that be, to imagine that Trump, the dictator, would be bad for THEM, but that’s what the ruling class thought about Hitler too. This trial will help to remind Americans about why we voted Trump out of office.

If Trump and his MAGA followers lose decisively in 2024, it could be an important turning point for America because it would be an opportunity to reclaim our progressive, open minded democracy in which we are working towards treating everyone fairly no matter their race or religion or sexual orientation, and reinforce our faith in the rule of law. It would help to limit the influence of toxic MAGAs like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Jim Jordan, Matt Goetz, and horrible Governor Kristi Noem, who murdered her 14-month-old puppy because he was too frisky.

She took the pup, a wirehaired pointer who was proving to be high-spirited and something of a handful, to a gravel pit and shot him dead.

Not unlike what Trump plans to do to people who are not loyal to him or won’t do what HE says.

These MAGAs are scary people. They need to be voted out of power.