Sour revenge
By 
Bouie points out that the overriding motivation for Trump’s second term is revenge, both against specific individuals and the American people for rejecting him:
The principal aim of President Trump’s second term is revenge.
Trump is consumed by this lust for revenge. It defined the first moments of his second term. “Within hours of taking the presidential oath,” my news-side colleagues Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan report in “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” the president “stripped protective details” from Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, “and others he had viewed as disloyal, including former national security adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper.”
Revenge against the aides and officials who restrained Trump’s worst impulses. Revenge against the bureaucrats and “deep state” agents who challenged his lawbreaking. Revenge against the prosecutors who pursued cases against him and against the judges who ruled in their favor. Revenge against the few Republicans who voted for his impeachment and conviction and against those who abandoned him after Jan. 6. And last, revenge against the American people, for rejecting him in 2020 and dealing a grievous blow to his ego.
Revenge shapes the president’s priorities, drives his actions and structures the decisions of his government. Nowhere is this more apparent than when Trump turns the weight of the federal government against those Americans who defy his will.
The legal wars on Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia and David Hearn, as he goes on to detail, are quintessential examples. But when it comes to his foreign policy misadventures, the threat becomes existential:
There are, to be sure, true believers within this administration, from the executive power fanatic Russell Vought to the far-right nativist Stephen Miller. But the man at the top has no such ambitions. He is there only for himself. The principal aim of his government as he sees it is his own glorification — a desperate quest to never lose face and to pursue vengeance against anyone who might undermine his sense of self.
Hence Trump’s failed war with Iran — a military failure and disastrous strategic mistake. There is no apparent plan to end the conflict, only the futile efforts of a president desperate to shed the stench of defeat. That is what the false negotiations and endless missile strikes are all about: a way to try to end the war without having lost it. Peace with honor, this time as something closer to farce.
The danger, of course, is what happens if there is no way out. What if Trump is truly stuck, fully caught in a trap of his own making?
With the terrible power of the United States at his fingertips, it is frightening to contemplate what he might do to save his fragile sense of self. He has already tried to wreck the country in pursuit of revenge against all those who challenge his ego and authority. There’s no reason to think that he won’t try to wreck the world in pursuit of the same.
Congratulations to all the Savvy yobbos who thought that because Trump hates rules that he must hate imperialism.