Apropos my thread from earlier on the “Absolute 9-0” video. Lindell is the ideal mark: He’s rich, wants desperately to believe, doesn’t understand the subject matter at all, AND has an elaborate ideological defense mechanism in place against being alerted to the con.
https://twitter.com/pbump/status/1400907919844073475
All cons thrive to some extent on the resistance to the humiliating admission you’ve been duped, but with Lindell you’ve got it on steroids (with a side of cocaine).
He’s built a whole public persona around pushing the con. He’s relying on it in multiple lawsuits! And anyone trying to explain how he’s been gulled gets dismissed as Part of the Liberal Cover-Up looong before they manage to walk him through the basics.
On reflection, there’s a decent chance that eventually Lindell’s lawyers will press him to throw his “cyber experts” under the bus if it looks like he’s at risk of losing all his money to Dominion.
Obviously he’s going to cling to “it’s not defamation because the claims are true” for as long as he can. But when that fails & he’s at risk of losing his shirt: “It’s not actual malice because I’m computer illiterate & these cyber people duped me.”
Probably it’ll take the form of a slippery argument-in-the-alternative. As in: “IF this was all ludicrous garbage, at any rate it wasn’t reckless disregard because people who use Linux were validating my delusions for money.”
And given the appropriately high bar for defamation suits by public figures, that defense could very well save him. Though it implies a weird legal escape hatch for people wealthy enough that their slanderous fantasies inspire knock-on grifts.
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