There was one line that struck me as particularly telling in The NY Times (subscription) article How Trump’s Border Czar Thomas Homan Found MAGA. It isn't about Homan. Is is about Trump.
The goes beyond Trump saying he admires someone who is tough on policy, which Homan is. Trump was saying he admires him because he sees him as nasty and mean.
Trump's reelection has unleashed the rapid junkyard dog in him. The official photo of Trump for 2025 is very different from the smiling photo if 2017. It has been compared to the mugshot photo that ended up on t-shirts.
Trump is without a doubt a mean and nasty president. He may not be the meanest and nastiest in modern history. LBJ and Nixon are said to have been foul mouthed in private. Trump has made a show of his nastiness.
One core of his personality is malevolence. If he was a king in olden times if some0ne crossed him or merely annoyed his sensibilities they might not even make it to the quillotine. Their heads might role right there in the royal court. "Clean-up on aisle three."
Trump enters his second term not only as a lame duck. While he may have a fantasy that he can remain in office after his term ends and that he will remain healthy well into his 80's, I think he has to have some desire to enjoy as much revenge as he possibly can while he still has the power to do this.
There is nothing subtle about Trump wanting to exact revenge of his actual enemies. He doesn't want to make it impossible for them to get elected again. He wants to make them miserable by having them prosecuted and if not imprisoned at least bankrupted. As far as people he has pledged to deport, or to put it bluntly, to get rid of, he wants to rip families apart and destroy the lives of people who have been leading happy productive lives here for years.
We are about to have a souless president for whom the cruelty is the point.
You may have seen the AI image I made a few months ago and used in some blogs. I revised this to show an even darker Trump and some bloodly letters.
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