I recently started following Jamelle Bouie on Instagram. A couple of days ago, he had a walk-and-talk video that outlined what he thinks is going on psychologically in Trump’s head. It’s just revenge.

In The New York Times, he expanded on that commentary in an opinion piece that went into more detail.

Some of our presidents have been complicated men. Consider Richard Nixon, a nearly Shakespearean figure of great talent and ambition whose paranoia, personal demons and lust for power proved to be his downfall.

Trump, by comparison, is not a complicated man.

His every executive function exists to satisfy his ego. He is a covetous person consumed by an insatiable desire for acquisition, a man who seems to take the seven deadly sins as a seven-day challenge. He sees every relationship as a game of dominance and seems to reject the very idea of a mutually beneficial transaction. He treats everyone around him, from employees and political allies to members of his own family, as tools to use and then discard. To cozy up to Trump is to sacrifice your dignity to his cravings and desires.

Understand these basic traits about Trump — and there is not much more to understand — and you can all but predict his behavior in any given situation. Yes, he is erratic, volatile, capricious and compulsive. But the common conceit that he is unpredictable is belied by the ease with which even a casual observer can plot his movements from A to B.

What a small, insecure man.

Bouie goes on to point out that this revenge tour is not just against the most obvious personalities, such as Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and others. It’s a much larger target.

And while Trump went on to win the 2024 race, even capturing the national popular vote for the first time in his political career, it’s not at all clear that his rage and resentment have subsided. It would actually be shocking, given what we know about his behavior and personality, if he could regulate his emotions well enough to turn his anger into something more constructive.

If this is his psychological state, then it stands to reason that Trump would want revenge against the public that denied him a second term as much as he wants revenge against the officials who have tried to make him answer for his illegal actions.

It is hard to describe Trump’s first month and a half in office as something other than a retribution campaign against the American people.

I cannot see a way that this does not backfire on him one way or another.