Donald Trump has an obsession with revenge, and a veteran Washington, D.C., journalist warned that's yet another reason his return to the White House would be an existential threat to American democracy.
The former president has given conflicting statements on whether he would seek retribution for his felony conviction in New York, but Mother Jones journalist David Corn said Trump has long made clear that he expects payback against anyone who slights him.
"Throughout his presidency, Trump condoned and encouraged violence," wrote Corn, the publication's Washington bureau chief. "And for decades, Trump has cited revenge as one of his key motivators. He has even touted it as crucial to his success. During the 2016 campaign, I tried to bring attention to this worrisome facet of Trump’s psychological make-up. I reported many examples of his long-held passion for revenge — including the time he tweeted in 2014 a quote from legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock: 'Revenge is sweet and not fattening.'"
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Trump has publicly mused on the topic for years before entering politics, such as the time he addressed a conference in Australia back in 2011, when he advised the National Achievers Congress to "get even" with their enemies: "If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard."
"For Trump, acts of revenge are essential for demonstrating he’s a tough guy," Corn wrote. "It’s evidently an important component of his own self-image."
Trump hammered away at those same points in a 2007 speech where he raged at Rosie O'Donnell during their running feud, and made clear he fully believed that it's important to "get even" with anyone who "screws you," adding that "you've got to hit people hard, and it’s not so much for that person. It’s other people watch.”
Revenge has been a central motivation for Trump throughout his business career and possibly caused him to enter politics in the first place, Corn said, so it's not unreasonable to worry what he would do to law enforcement officials and judges who have been involved in his prosecutions since leaving office.
"For years, political observers have speculated that Trump entered the 2016 presidential content in part to avenge the humiliation he suffered when President Barack Obama skewered him at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2011," Corn wrote. "Maybe. But certainly one factor driving him this time around is his desire to even the score with those who opposed him during his first term and thwarted the reaffirmation he yearned for in 2020."
"This guilty verdict adds more names to his hit list and will, without doubt, intensify the already excessive and alarming lust for revenge that Trump, if elected, will bring with him back to the White House," he added.
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