A thought, as you view today's events.
I consider 45’s selfishness to be practically a mathematical certainty - as strong and consistent a guiding behavioral trait as, say, the will to win of a MIchael Jordan. His is a Herculean narcissism.
For the sake of argument, let’s take this tendency as a literal line on a graph, i.e. he undertakes every action, large and small, all day every day, for one reason and one reason only: to benefit himself.
What explains him sticking his neck out for Michael Flynn?
Specifically, the “see your way clear of this” 2/14 Oval Office conversation with Comey, in which he shooed the rest of the IC bigwigs out of the room, and asked Comey in private to "let [the Flynn investigation] go.”
Stop me if this is totally obvious, and I’m late to the party. But I feel like, since the details of this conversation leaked a few days ago, I’ve been struck by the bumbling way in which Trump ham-fistedly obstructed justice to try to bail out someone who had been unflinchingly loyal to him, who was now in a great deal of hot water.
But this premise assumes that Trump possesses the instinct to bail out anyone besides himself: that he himself possesses even a shred of the loyalty that he demands so consistently from others.
Our core assumption is that Trump acts 0% to benefit Michael Flynn, and 100% to benefit himself.
Given this, is there another explanation other than the fact that Trump is clearly being blackmailed? Most likely by Flynn himself?
Again, feel free to let me know if this is either a) duh, yesterday’s news or b) off-base, because of some piece in the puzzle I’m missing.