Don’t make Donald Trump angry. You won’t like him when he’s angry. Fascinated by violence, the former president has threatened imprisonment and death on his political “enemies” and others who he believes have wronged him. He is increasingly channeling Adolf Hitler and the Nazis with promises and threats to purify the blood of the nation by eliminating the human “vermin” once he takes power in 2025 and becomes America’s first dictator.
Trump’s many negative personality traits are exacerbated by his authoritarianism and social dominance orientation, and what appears to be a hypermanic personality, egomania, and God complex. Trump is a charismatic leader and de facto political cult leader who gives his followers permission to engage in the worst of human behavior. Trump’s followers are attracted to him because of his negative behavior and personality and not despite it.
Donald Trump is especially hostile to (if not hates) anyone who dares to disagree with him, tell him “no”, oppose him, or otherwise not give him the validation and narcissistic fuel he desperately craves.
In a new book, his own great nephew, Fred Trump III, describes him as “atomic crazy.” His niece, Mary Trump, who is a trained mental health professional, has repeatedly sounded the alarm about what she believes is his profound mental and emotional unwellness and dangerousness to society.
Examples of such behavior by Donald Trump include his late-night rage posts on his Truth Social disinformation platform. Jan 6 coup attempt and the lethal attack on the Capitol by his MAGA cultists, is perhaps the clearest manifestation of the types of violence and chaos Trump unleashes when he does not get his way. Trump is also continuing to amplify the Big Lie that he did not lose the 2020 Election. Trump has repeatedly made it clear he will reject the results, which will include violence, mayhem, and a bloodbath (these are Trump’s own words) if he does not “win” the upcoming election. In a series of recent interviews, Donald Trump has stated that when/if he takes power there will no longer be a need to vote. As historians and other experts have highlighted, this is how authoritarians consolidate power and crush dissent.
After surviving the recent attempt on his life, Trump promised America and the world that he was a changed man who only wants unity and to be a nicer person. That was never true. Trump almost immediately disregarded that “promise” and returned to his general vileness.
At a recent rally in Minnesota, Trump embraced his bad behavior and foul temperament, telling his cheering followers that he is a bad man:
I want to be nice. They all say, ‘I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed since two weeks ago. Something affected him. No, I haven’t changed. Maybe I’ve gotten worse. Because I get angry at the incompetence that I witness every single day.
But Trump’s hostility is not universal and equal: he has repeatedly shown himself to be a racist, a white supremacist, and a misogynist.
As such, Donald Trump has a large amount of animus and general hostility towards women and non-white people who he views as not being suitably compliant, validating, and deferent.
Ultimately, Donald Trump is a champion of white identity politics and the revanchist project to end multiracial democracy. Public opinion polls and other research have consistently shown that Trump’s MAGA followers and other Republican and “conservative” voters generally support that agenda.
In an example of the types of white racial paranoiac thinking that drive such beliefs in “white oppression” and “reverse racism”, Donald Trump recently told Time magazine that white people are the real victims of “racism” in American. No evidence exists to support such a claim. It is delusional.
A compelling argument can be made that Donald Trump’s decision to run for president in 2016, was in part fueled by his anger at President Barack Obama who mocked him for his bigoted and racist Birther conspiracy theory at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
For years, Donald Trump has made misogynistic and hostile sexist attacks against Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and of course Stormy Daniels and E. Jean Carroll. A court of law concluded that Trump sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll. Social scientists and other experts have shown that hostile sexism and misogyny drive support for Donald Trump and the MAGA movement and the larger neofascist project.
Donald Trump, a convicted felon, has raged at the Black and women prosecutors, attorneys, district attorneys, and others who have attempted to hold him responsible under the law for his decades-long public crime spree. For example, Donald Trump has slurred these members of law enforcement and the courts as being “thugs”, among other racially charged invective. In a 2023 essay, I detailed how:
Trump has been transparent and direct with such feelings of angst and rage and white entitlement. Trump has attacked the black women (and black men) who are attempting to hold him accountable under the law with thinly coded racial slurs such as “thugs” and “criminals” and saying they are “corrupt”. Trump went so far as to attack prosecutor Letitia James as a “racist” “monster”. In his white rage temper tantrums, Trump has repeatedly claimed that he, a rich white man, is a “victim” of “racism” because he is finally being held accountable for his decades-long public crime spree….
By comparison, Donald Trump is very pleased that Judge Aileen Cannon, a white woman who he appointed to the court, appears to be following his directives in how she is presiding so favorably — to the consternation of legal experts and the Department of Justice — over the classified documents case in Florida. For Trump, and others who share his regressive worldview about race and gender, that is as it should be.
Given his demonstrated hostility towards black people and women, I have no doubt about the racist and misogynistic words and thoughts – those two or three vile and hateful words – that Trump is in all probability repeating over and over again inside of his head.
Vice President Kamala Harris is now the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee. As a Black South Asian woman her ascendance is historic. The amount of rage, vitriol, and hatred that Donald Trump and his agents will be directing toward Harris because of her personhood and politics will be extreme. Because Trump is an enemy of democracy and rule of law, he will be even more provoked by Vice President Harris’ background.
Ultimately, Donald Trump and his movement are fueled by white rage—and such rage can become all-consuming and destructive. White rage often has a blowback effect as well because it allows white elites to enact policies that hurt the average white person in America as well. President Johnson explained this reality as follows: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." In her 2016 book, historian Carol Anderson said this about white rage:
It is not the mere presence of black people that is the problem; rather, it is blackness with ambition, with drive, with purpose, with aspirations, and with demands for full and equal citizenship. It is blackness that refuses to accept subjugation, to give up. A formidable array of policy assaults and legal contortions has consistently punished black resilience, black resolve. And all the while, white rage manages to maintain not only the upper hand but also, apparently, the moral high ground. It’s Giuliani chastising black people to fix the problems in their own neighborhoods instead of always scapegoating the police. Its the endless narratives about a culture of black poverty that devalues education, hard work, family, and ambition.
Black America knows this danger. Many of us are prepared for it. Too many white Americans (and people of color who are invested in whiteness) will be surprised. But that surprise will be more performative than sincere, the “frontstage” of race and the color line in America versus the “backstage.”
Vice President Harris and the Democrats and other pro-democracy Americans will have to overcome Trumpism and its white rage politics (and inherent violence) on Election Day and beyond if the country’s democratic culture is to be healed and renewed.
