Confucius addressed the cycle of hatred and retaliation* when he proclaimed:
If you seek revenge, dig two graves.
The phrase obviously implies that this cycle ultimately leads to the avenger’s own destruction. In Trump’s pursuit of his “personal enemies,” he is unequivocally motivated by revenge. His administration systematically eviscerated the US Department of Justice (DOJ), transforming it into a weapon of Trump’s vengeance. In short, and instead of operating independently and prosecuting real criminals like narco-traffickers or terrorists, the Trump-revised DOJ acts as Trump’s personal battalion.
Just a few weeks ago, Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute three of his political opponents—James Comey, Letitia James, and Adam Schiff. Coincidentally, Trump thought he had privately communicated his wishes to Bondi. Instead, his directive, appeared on his Truth Social platform on September 20th. It reads:
Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.’ We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.
Guilty as hell for what? The furious note, broadcast to his 11 million followers, reveals:
a. prima facie evidence of his wish for retaliation and;
b. an excellent defense for those he seeks to harm.
In the public sphere, then, Trump’s desire for vengeance, not justice, materializes. So far, Trump has succeeded in indicting Comey—but just barely. The prior US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, found no basis for indicting the former FBI Director. Trump reacted angrily, prompting Siebert to resign. To continue the vindictive pursuit, Trump put his former personal lawyer, Lindsay Halligan, in Siebert’s place. Halligan has never practiced criminal law; she has never tried a criminal case before.
Halligan only had a few days to drum up charges Siebert couldn’t find. Hardly a surprising development, she initially entered the wrong courtroom. Once in the proper courtroom, Halligan stood on the wrong side of the judge. She appeared confused but managed to file the charges alleging that Comey made false statements to Congress anyway.
Days later, Halligan filed another indictment, this time against Letitia James, the first African American Attorney General of New York. James stands accused of bank fraud. Even if true, the alleged fraud would have saved her a total of $19,000 over the life of the loan. Nonetheless, Halligan said the charges amount to “intentional, criminal acts and tremendous breaches of the public’s trust.” Really? What about organized crime figures? James, who considers the charges “baseless,” called the indictment:
Nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponization of our justice system.
The DOJ turns its sights now on investigating Senator Adam Schiff; Former CIA Director John Brennan; District Attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, Fani Willis; and a multitude of organizations that Trump believes persecuted him. For example, the FBI, the investigative arm of the DOJ, severed its partnership with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) last week. The FBI had, at times, worked with the ADL to battle antisemitism. FBI Director Kash Patel posted that:
That era is OVER. This FBI won’t partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs.
The ADL as a political front? For what? These developments, resembling more banana republics than the United States, demonstrate the gradual dismantling of our democratic system. Whether considered a monarch or a dictator, Trump actively prosecutes whichever public servants, governmental entities, or nonprofit organizations he dislikes. Pursuing justice against criminals serves the people of the United States; persecuting Trump’s personal enemies serves only one person:
Donald Trump.
In confirmation, the New York Times observed that:
The moves set in motion five frantic days that dealt a blow to the department’s independence. It ended with a tableau that summed up both the gravity and slapstick** of the moment. (Thrush, Haberman, Feuer, and Pager, 2025).
From a psychoanalytic perspective, Trump’s desire for revenge is driven by a combination of insecurity and envy. These emerge from the malignant narcissism from which he suffers, a topic of several previous essays. Some of these “enemies” threatened his defensive grandiosity by prosecuting him; others, like Comey,*** Brennan, and Schiff, elicit envy because their stature overshadows Trump’s; specific organizations, like the ADL, fail to comport with his wishes perfectly.
In other words, we have a powerful person, the president of the United States, behaving like a hurt, angry toddler. Daniel Drezner (2020), an American political scientist and professor at Tufts University, wrote a book titled: The Toddler in Chief. But, of course, the situation in Trump’s second term is much worse than just having a 3-year-old running the US government. The toddler now lacks adult supervision. He appoints pure loyalists into positions of power. They, in turn, do his bidding.
Psychoanalyst Melanie Klein’s (1946) ideas regarding primitive mental functioning best explain Trump’s behavior. More than any other psychoanalytic scholar, she dug into this specific, shadowy side of human psychology. As I noted in earlier pieces, malignant narcissists use grandiosity to defend their brittle, often unstable self-images. The individuals Trump seeks to prosecute threaten to expose the flaccid core of his identity. It is an entirely unconscious process. Trump is not lying when he brags of ending wars, bolstering the economy, befriending Kim Jong Un, or understanding Vladimir Putin. These statements, each of them false, illustrate the shiny, quixotic armor Trump erects to protect the fragility he cannot see.
The newly-minted US attorneys investigating Trump’s perceived enemies build up his egomaniacal defenses. His cadre of personal prosecutors elevates his ego. Trump behaves like a medieval king protected by his knights. And much like such warriors of ancient times, they intend to harm, if not destroy, these perceived threats. However, the situation is not really about any misdeeds by these officials.
Klein conceptualized such behavior by the phrase envious spoiling. One sees such behavior in everyday life. If a person envies an associate because she has a Mercedes, they might strip off the paint of the car using a key. A pre-med student who sabotages a colleague’s lab project might also be driven by the need to spoil because of envy. Instead of seeking their own competence, they need to drag down the success of others.
Because of Trump’s executive power, he enacts his envy-driven revenge in a far more dangerous way. His team of prosecutors can inflict far more damage than keying a car or breaking a beaker. They can ruin the lives of these individuals. Investigating someone like Schiff for mortgage fraud, however absurd the charge, causes harm to his reputation, costs him thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees, and disrupts his capacity to function as a Senator. Even worse, each of these individuals, including Schiff, could be imprisoned if Trump’s envious spoiling succeeds.
Trump’s primitive mental functioning brings many perils to the American people. As noted, his focus on revenge is only about him, not about the public he is supposed to serve. Because Trump’s behaviors stray egregiously from the historical norms of American government, they threaten our government’s very foundations. Additionally, Trump’s personal vendettas, unfolding before a global audience, publicly humiliate the American people. We are no longer the defenders of peace and justice; an authoritarian leader intent on retribution leads us.
In accordance with that Chinese proverb, the “second grave” consists not of the literal death of Trump. That grave contains, oh so sadly, the fragments of the American experiment in democracy. It holds fear and sadness. We fear for who our spiteful leader will punish next; we mourn that amazing humanistic endeavor, the ideal of “we the people,” now being lowered into the ground.
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*The word, “retaliation,” includes the word “talion” as in the sharp claws of predator birds like hawks.
**Slapstick presumably refers to Halligan’s clumsy behavior in court.
***Unbelievably Freudian, but Trump is almost certainly also threatened by Comey’s literal stature. He stands 6’7” to Trump’s alleged 6’2”.
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References
Drezner, D. (2020). The Toddler in Chief: What Donald Trump Teaches Us about the Modern Presidency. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Klein, M. (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 27, 99-110.
Thrush, T., Haberman, M., Feuer, A., and Pager, T. (2025). Inside the Trump administration’s push to prosecute James Comey. New York Times. Published September 27, 2025.