The legal beagles are saying these days that prosecutors can prove that Trump knew that he lost— because so many people told him so. And that, they say, means that prosecutors can prove he had the requisite criminal intent to make his actions around overturning the election a crime.
For all practical purposes, that’s doubtless right.
But I am not convinced that Trump actually knew what so many people told him, because his pathological narcissism is so severe that the idea “You’re a loser” might be actually unknowable for Donald Trump. He has often seemed to believe what he emotionally needs to believe. Whether he actually “knows” that the American people actually rejected him or not, I don’t claim to know. But, according to several psychologists I’ve consulted, it is a real possibility that he believed his Big Lie.
I said “for all practical purposes,” however, because it seems unimaginable that Trump would ever plead “not guilty by reason of insanity,” which seems like the alternative to conceding that Trump must have known, after being told so many times by so many people, that he’d lost the election. He’d never admit that he’s incapable of absorbing a truth that is incompatible with his emotional needs.
Trump could never admit, in other words, how profoundly damaged a human being he is.
So in a trial, prosecutors would be able to establish his “criminal intent,” just as the legal beagles are saying.
But the bottom line is: whether he is criminal or crazy — or some combination of both — Donald Trump is a most dangerous sort of person to have anywhere near power.