The subtext has become the übertext
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I don’t think he’s that delusional. He’s seemingly playing to non-existent cameras in the court right now, knowing his every smirk and outburst will be dutifully reported, not caring about the judge he’s clearly pissing off. Ultimately he’s not hoping to win over judges, prosecutors or juries, but instead he’s counting on three things:
- To make money, as he gets more contributions the more he can paint himself as a martyr
- To inspire his supporters to engage in stochastic terrorism that causes judges, prosecutors and juries to give up or be intimidated out of finding him guilty
- To increase his chances of becoming president, which he found to be an excellent way of avoiding consequences (even if he has to declare himself dictator for life to do so)
Also I suspect he’s counting on not seeing any jail time as a result of any trials that will be resolved before the election.
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Has anyone had any luck playing the fool, I mean asking a nazi who’s just “joking” to explain what the joke actually is? I’ve not had the chance myself yet.
Edit for clarity.
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The joke is that they are unironic Nazis pretending to be ironic Nazis. If you take them seriously they laugh at you for being credulous. If you don’t take them seriously, they laugh at you for being naive.
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I think he is. He’s obsessed with “yuge ratings” and Q-scores and ranks everyone in the world by them (with him on top of course). He’s not hoping to win the judge or prosecutor over to his side, but feels he can gain Roy Cohn’s power over a courtroom if the public is watching him. He’s not Roy Cohn, of course – no blackmail material and ability to intimidate that will allow him take over the proceedings and harangue people. So it will fail, but this is his delusion, fueled by decades of tabloid coverage and reality TV.
The other factors you mention definitely play a part in his desire to do this, but it all comes down to his belief that the TV cameras give him superpowers.
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Here’s how it works, you punch them as hard as you can, and while they’re on their ass, ask them if they mind repeating the joke, as maybe you heard it wrong the first time.
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Yeah, definitely - but with regard to his base, not anyone in the court. It’s part of this dynamic:
Can’t prosecute Trump if the judge and/or prosecutor have been kidnapped/murdered/are in hiding for their safety!
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I understand the whole “I’m just an edge lord, wink wink” thing. What I’m trying to get at is if children make inappropriate jokes you can usually get them to see the problems with the humour if you make them explain the particular joke. Particularly if you press them in a child like way. Why? Ok why? And so on. I’ve not tried this on nazis but it seems to work on casual bigots I’ve come across.
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Also obligatory, from Sartre (making the easy replacement of “anti-Semites” with “fascists”):
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. 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. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
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Is he wrong? He literally won the election because of them. Before The Apprentice, 99% of people considered him a joke. During it, some people didn’t understand that he was in on the joke about how bad he was and thought he was an actual good businessman. And those people voted the TV person into office.
Myself, if we had to pick random TV show people to vote in, would have gone more along the lines of Alex P Keaton.
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In a courtroom he’s wrong. This isn’t reality or tabloid-trash TV where he sets the narrative.
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doesn’t sartre spend a third of his book condemning inauthentic liberals though?
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Well yeah… it’s Sartre… he’s not exactly a fan of liberalism, especially those who clearly are not living up to their own ideals? 
But whatever you think about Sartre’s politics, he was spot on with this view on antisemites. Bigotry is not a logical worldview, and the bigot often knows this. Hence they’re rarely arguing from a place of rationality, because the worldview is not itself rational.
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What are you talking about? /S
When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.
– Dumb Jerk Tumbleweed
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Why, yes. Just listening to this asshole makes me foam at the mouth.
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But still, Sartre’s critique is rooted in antisemitism-- if you generalize it to fascism, it loses it’s bite. Qanon comes close, after the outright Nazis.
Do you see any evidence that American fascists are currently not doing exactly the same things as Sartre describes anti-Semites doing?
There’s also the small matter of the affinity between fascists and anti-Semites. It’s not exactly surprising that they share the same tactics.
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Fascism and antisemitism aren’t so easily distinct, though. Much of the fascist movement in Europe was focused on “the outsider” and that was often Jewish people, who had long been seen as the “other” in European life. You can’t disconnect the rise of fascism from that longer history of antisemitism…
And additionally, you absolutely can extrapolate his point to other kinds of bigotry favored by fascists, too, since they are often found together.
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If it weren’t so deadly serious I’d think it was a joke out of a Mel Brooks movie.
“We are not fascists, and anyone who disagrees will be crushed like a bug!”
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