Donald Trump's Fear at the Fair

He's Not the Confident Front Runner He Wants Us To Think He Is

It’s easy to see through Donald Trump these days.

His charade of lies and bluster are not only wearing thin, they no longer hide anything. Trump is not who he wants us to believe he is - a tough guy, a brilliant, master political strategist, and especially not the once and future president of the United States.

What he is, is a very frightened little man.

With good reason. His “jig” is up, and he knows it. His followers may not have figured it out yet, but he knows it.

Three events this past week - the first of which took place in Iowa at the State Fair - make Trump’s fear obvious.

Event #1 - Saturday, August 12: Trump supposedly thumbed his nose at the tradition of presidential candidates speaking to Iowans from the Des Moines Register’s “Soapbox” at the Iowa State Fair. Instead, he wandered around the fairgrounds with three congressional representatives from Florida, shaking hands and signing autographs, and generally - though not entirely - avoiding questions from the public and the news media. When somebody did manage to ask him a question, it was generally a brief exchange and in a venue that made it hard for cameras and reporters to cover it.

Event #2 - Thursday - August 17: Trump cancelled a press conference he had just announced days before, for this coming Monday. He announced it in the immediate wake of his Georgia indictments. He promised he would release “irrefutable” and “overwhelming evidence” at the press conference that would provide “complete exoneration” for him. He also claimed that his exoneration would be so complete that all charges against him would have to be completely dismissed once his “evidence” was released.

Funny he’d wait for criminal indictment #91 to land before deciding to release information that “completely exonerates” him, but (eye roll), OK, Mr. Trump.

On Thursday, Trump declared the press conference “off.” He claimed his lawyers told him not to do it because they thought it would be best to present that “evidence” in court, at his trial. The press conference, he said, was no longer “needed.”

If that story were true, the first thing we should note is that it would be the first time that we know of that Trump actually took competent legal advice.

But at least two other things stand out:

(1) At the same time Trump was promising to produce “irrefutable evidence” that would “completely exonerate” him - to be delivered in just over a week - his lawyers were telling the court they were going to need three years to prepare their defense of him.

Hmmmm. A week to fully exonerate; or three years to prepare a defense. I think I’m going with the view that it’s likely the lawyers telling the truth here.

(2) If the lawyers did tell Trump his “evidence” should be held to be presented at trial, they are pretty clearly expecting a trial. They are not expecting his so-called “irrefutable evidence” - which one must assume they are familiar with - to cause all charges to be immediately dismissed, as some sort of terrible accident, as Trump wants us to believe. In. other words, even Trump’s own lawyers are not buying his claim about “irrefutable evidence” that will “completely exonerate” him and cause all charges to be dismissed.

Event #3 - Friday - August 18: Trump announces he will not take part in the first Republican debate this coming Wednesday. People who should know better note that this is a brilliant political move. He confidently is drawing attention to himself and his lead in public opinion polls with a one-on-one interview with Tucker Carlson - the public big-lie endorser/private non-believer - full time Trump lap dog. No need for him to mix it up with the lesser lights of his party.

Brilliant political strategy and confidence had nothing to do with it.

Then what is the explanation behind these three events?

What do these three events have in common? Spoiler alert - it’s not brilliant political strategy. It’s not the confidence of a front runner. It has nothing to do with toughness.

It’s about fear. Donald Trump’s fear. Real. Deep. Searing.

It may have looked like Trump was swashbuckling his way through the Iowa State Fair, but what he was really doing was hiding - from Iowans and the press corps who might ask him questions, and follow up questions, and who don’t accept his tedious lies at face value, and might challenge him on them.

In the political trade, they say Trump was looking for “safe venues” at the fair. He pretty much found them.

He might have sounded like a tough guy when he answered the Georgia indictments with a promise to blow them out of the water the next week at a press conference with “irrefutable evidence” that would “completely exonerate” him and cause all charges against him to be “dismissed.”

No.

He was simply lying. Again. Posturing. I don’t believe for a nano-second that Donald Trump ever planned to hold a press conference to release “irrefutable evidence” that would “completely exonerate” him.

First - no such evidence exists. We know that because we’ve all heard the audio recordings of his post-election phone calls to Georgia, and he’s already pretty much admitted much of what has been charged against him.

Second - doing so would have required him to stand before a sea of informed reporters and answer questions about his crime factory activities following the 2020 election. I think even Trump knows his lies would never survive that cauldron.

In the political trade, they call what Trump is doing here, “diversion” and mis-direction, hoping that his empty, bellicose, claims will draw attention away from the crimes charged against him. The aim - for those who do notice and do remember those charges - is that Trump’s immediate and quick promise of evidence that will “completely exonerate him” will get attached to news of the indictments, and be remembered in tandem, and maybe even longer.

Trump may have looked like a confident front runner who can command his own stage rather than share it with the others who have the audacity to also seek the Republican nomination for president in 2024.

What he really is, is a small little man who is terrified at the prospect of debating other candidates who might press him on his crimes and his record as a loser, and who don’t have 91 criminal indictments hanging over their heads.

The best thing a guy who wants to stay out of prison can do is to stay off that debate stage, and any other stage where questions might be asked of him about his crimes.

What Trump is doing is pretty simple: he’s hiding.

The great former Drake and Iowa State University Coach, the late Maury John, was known for his famous “belly button” defense.

That’s not Trump’s style. Trump has what I call a “Duck and Cover” offense. It’s based on an onslaught of bombast, lies, insults and criminality - followed by a mad rush to stay far away from anything that looks like accountability.

It’s not a brilliant political strategy, but it is the universal style of bullies everywhere. He is deploying it now for one reason: he hopes it will keep him out of prison.

Don’t look for Trump to join many debates in this campaign. Don’t look for him to hold many open press conferences or public forums where anyone who is not already a bone carrying member of the Trump Lap Dog Club might have a chance to ask him a question.

Trump is more of a one-way megaphone kind of communicator, even in the best of times. He wants you to hear his belligerent lies, insults, and excuses, but he doesn’t want to hear from you or the American people about anything. Especially not his many crimes.

It’s a very strange way to try to get elected president, if you ask me.

Barry Piatt on Politics: Behind the Curtains is a weekly column that is part of the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative. The Collaborative links some of Iowa’s best thinkers and writers directly with readers to help fill the gap left as many of Iowa’s traditional newspapers cut back on opinion, analysis and even reporting on a wide range of topics. Please review the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative columns listed below and consider subscribing - either for free or with a paid subscription - to help ensure that readers continue to have access to informed and thoughtful opinion, analysis, commentary, and reporting. Your subscriptions, especially paid subscriptions, are what makes this effort work and allow these columns to be available.

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