The absent Donald Trump didn’t lose last night — which probably means he wins

So, did Donald Trump outfox Fox? Shunning the crunch TV debate four days before the opening Iowa caucuses, setting up a rival show with CNN, and thumbing his nose at the most powerful right-of-center media organisation in the world looked at first like madness. Then it looked like genius. And then, meh, well, who knows?

At his rival Veterans event, Trump’s speech was bizarre as usual. “I’ve got to be honest I didn’t want to be here tonight,’ he said. ‘But you have to stick up for your rights when you are treated badly’. It’s difficult to know if Trump believes that his spat with Fox anchor Megyn Kelly — which is what he’s referring to there — is the real reason he avoided the debate, or if he is deliberately conning his audience. I suspect that, as people said of Tony Blair, he is able to convince himself of a lie as he says it.