General
Revenge Is a Dish Best Served From the White House
“I am your warrior,” Donald Trump declared in a 90-minute speech at a 2023 campaign event in Waco, Texas. “I am your justice.” Trump promised to take revenge on behalf of his supporters: “For those who have been wronged and betrayed,” he said, “I am …
“I am your warrior,” Donald Trump declared in a 90-minute speech at a 2023 campaign event in Waco, Texas. “I am your justice.”
Trump promised to take revenge on behalf of his supporters: “For those who have been wronged and betrayed,” he said, “I am your retribution.”
This is a campaign promise on which Trump has already delivered. Even before he returns to the White House next week, he has effectively conducted a purge in his own party, pushing out of office eight of the 10 Republican members of the House who voted for his 2021 impeachment, in addition to pushing into retirement many of his Senate critics, such as Jeff Flake of Arizona, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Mitt Romney of Utah, the only Republican senator who voted to convict Trump in both of his impeachment trials.
More than any other presidential candidate in recent memory, with the possible exception of Richard Nixon, Trump has vowed to use the prosecutorial and regulatory levers of government to punish those who he believes wronged him by voting to discredit his presidency, indicting him and accusing him repeatedly of insurrection.
Trump’s second term is apt to become known as a kind of revenge presidency, the return of the king.
Studies of revenge show that it is addictive, both psychologically and physically.
James Kimmel Jr., a lawyer who is a lecturer in psychiatry at Yale Medical School and the author of the forthcoming book “The Science of Revenge,” wrote by email in response to my inquiries:
An addiction to revenge raises serious questions, Kimmel continued:
I asked Kimmel whether he believed Trump was “addicted to revenge” — recognizing, of course, that Kimmel has not examined Trump and can make his observations based only on Trump’s public comments. Kimmel replied:
Kimmel added that he is making
While “the human desire for revenge is universal,” Kimmel argued that “addictions generally afflict about 20 percent of a population and that it varies by degree.” He said that his research shows “that tyrants such as Hitler, Stalin and Mao were addicted to violent revenge seeking throughout much of their lives” but that for some, “revenge can be limited to the imagination, unkind words or more socially acceptable, nonviolent acts of retaliation. President Trump’s revenge seeking to date has been nonviolent.”
