Why did Trump surrender at all?

Alvin Bragg is a rogue prosecutor acting outside the boundaries of the law. Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, said he would not cooperate in any extradition. If Trump did not surrender, he might simultaneously have defied this nonsense charge and also put DeSantis, his likely opponent, in a bind.

DeSantis does not want to appear to be Trump’s lackey, but he also wants to keep his word. His P.R. gesture eventually would have come crashing down, as a governor does not really have authority to defy an extradition request. But forcing DeSantis’s hand would take some time, and it might have redounded to Trump’s benefit when DeSantis eventually caved.

Not only should Trump not have surrendered, he should be looking for ways to get his allies to sue and prosecute his enemies, including this lunatic Manhattan prosecutor. Starting now, states are going to need to develop creative means of resistance to the federal government, as well against blue states, which are engaged in lawless, extraterritorial power grabs. We need to dust off the 19th century playbook of nullification.
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For all his faults and his New York cynicism, Trump still believes in America. The old one. This is why he says Make America Great Again. He thinks the country and its institutions are fundamentally good, that its people are decent, and that truth, justice, and prosperity will prevail once again when this temporary emergency passes.

This is why he highlights the hypocrisy of his mistreatment by the Democrats, the intelligence community, and the Department of Justice. For him, this is all a deviation from an otherwise workable and just system. Remove the bad actors and the bad precedents, and things return to normal.

Unfortunately, this is all very doubtful, not least because his trials are simply a more extreme example of bureaucratic resistance to democracy that has taken hold since the New Deal.