Rich Lowry is…Right

Friends, it grieves me deeply to write this, but Rich Lowry is right.

When you get past this abominable click-bait title, he reminds us that Trump very obviously is not going to go anywhere for a couple of reasons: 1.) The presidency provides him some legal protection.

Naked self-interest also counsels against retiring to his tent. Back in New York, he’d have an enormous legal target on his back, and none of the institutional protections of the presidency. He could be indicted by the Southern District of New York over the Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal payments. Going from most powerful man in the world to a defendant in a sordid and embarrassing high-profile criminal trial would be a very unwelcome comedown. 

And 2.) He is powering through using the most powerful motivator imaginable for malignant narcissists–spite. Folks, he’s gonna stay in this thing ’til the end just to show us.

I’m not privy to Trump’s psychological state, and I’m sure he’s often furious and feels besieged, as the media report all the time, but he has never shown the slightest brittleness or sense of being overwhelmed in public.

I disagree slightly here. All the scandals and negative attention has to weigh on him and he always looks miserable to me. I’m sure he wishes everyone adored him instead of half the country loathing him. But it obviously doesn’t weigh on him enough. And I do think that the idea that so many people hate him does fuel him. He’s gonna show us. He’s gonna show us if it kills him, dammit. This is why I’m convinced that he will run in 2020.

For any president, winning a second term is the highest validation. Trump, so sensitive to status, must feel this imperative more than most. There’d be no better way to own the libs.

Precisely.

Of course, Rich drops the ball in the last paragraph:

Besides all this, no one should really hope for a premature end to the Trump presidency. Whatever the exact circumstances, it’d be a trauma to the republic and probably not accepted by a significant plurality of the electorate.

It would only be a trauma to his garbage voters and no one should give a shit what they think, frankly.