The “Most Screwed-Up” President in History
The uncanny parallels between Donald Trump and Richard Nixon
Before Donald Trump there was Richard Nixon -- a petty, paranoid, vindictive President who abused the government to gain revenge against his opponents. Nixon, who wandered the White House halls in anger when he couldn’t sleep; developed an extensive list of enemies and used the government to go after them.
The list included many journalists who had been critical of the President. Extremely thin-skinned, Nixon also nursed grudges against Hollywood critics like Paul Newman and wealthy people who donated to his opponents’ campaigns. The list also included academics who had spoken against him, and his rivals’ campaign workers.
As he went after his opponents, Nixon used the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service to harass them. The IRS conducted audits of his “enemies.” The FBI deployed agents to interview friends, neighbors, and families to gather information and develop files on his critics. The bureau also used illegal wiretaps. Federal agencies withdrew grants to unfriendly professors. Nixon also ordered the infamous burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate building. The break-ins and revenge plots led to Nixon’s impeachment and forced him to become the only President to resign from office.
Perhaps the most accurate analysis was published by psychiatrist David Abrahamsen -- Nixon vs Nixon: An Emotional Tragedy. As Abrahamsen reported, the 37th President grew up poor and felt deprived as a child. His father wanted little to do with him, but Nixon called his mother a “saint.” Nixon, who lied about his early family life, sugar-coating it as poor but good, grew into a brilliant, ambitious, manipulative, and desperate man driven by his need for respect and the love of his neglectful father.
One review of Nixon vs. Nixon summarized the man who emerged in its pages as “one of the most screwed-up people who ever lived.”
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Fifty-one years after Nixon’s reign of retribution and criminality, we have a President who surpasses America’s most disgraced chief executive in matters of revenge, rage, and the abuse of power. His enemies, like Nixon’s, include journalists, rival politicians, and Hollywood types, but also foreign leaders who are either critical, or disobedient.
Trump recently shocked Europe by announcing the withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany. American military personnel have been stationed in Germany since the Cold War as a deterrence to Russian aggression. As of now, 36,000 serve this mission. A drawdown signals Russia and our allies alike that we’re not so serious about protecting Europe.
Why did Trump suddenly reduce our forces in Germany? The simple answer is revenge. Trump’s feelings where hurt when German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Iran had “humiliated” the administration by standing strong and added, “The Americans obviously have no strategy”
Trump was already angry at allies like Germany, who have refused to participate in the attacks on Iran and seem little interested in helping to break the enemy’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which cut the world’s supply of oil by 20 percent, causing shortages and skyrocketing prices.
With his over-the-top response to Merz’s criticism, Trump followed a lifelong habit. As he has explained it many times, no matter the slight, he always hits back “ten times harder.” He also never stops stewing about people who have crossed him. A case in point: The recent indictment of former FBI director James Comey.
Trump has been furious at Comey since 2016 when he led an investigation into Russia’s influence on Trump’s presidential campaign. Trump won the Presidency, but he couldn’t let go of his hatred for Comey, whom he has called a “dirty cop” and a “liar” who conducted a “witch hunt” against him. He fired Comey soon after he took office in 2017.
In his first term, when cooler heads prevailed at the Department of Justice, the Trump government left citizen Comey alone. But in his current term, Trump named ultra-loyalist Pam Bondi as attorney general and put other staunch supporters to prominent roles. These people, including the current acting AG Todd Blanche, have been eager to carry out Trump’s revenge agenda.
Comey was first indicted last fall on specious charges that he lied to Congress about leaks to the press. This case was thrown out of court when a judge determined that the Virginia-based prosecutor had been wrongly appointed. The original case was so flimsy that it was never re-filed.
This time around, a federal prosecutor in North Carolina is going after Comey for a photo he posted on social media. It represented “a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States,” said the indictment.
The Instagram picture in question showed seashells on a beach arranged to display the numbers “86” and “47.” Forty-seven refers to Trump, who is the country’s 47th President. According to the feds, eighty-six is a mob term for murder. Scant evidence supports this interpretation, but restaurant workers have long used it in various ways. Some say it refers to menu items that are sold out. Others say it refers to getting rid of troublesome customers.
As it stretched to make something out of the seashell message, the Department of Justice demonstrated its commitment to Trump’s explicitly stated drive for “retribution” against his political enemies. Although he would prefer it, it doesn’t matter much if he prevails in court. The idea is to make his target suffer financially and emotionally. Top lawyers are extremely expensive. And no matter how thick your skin may be, charges filed by the feds are going to shake you up.
That this move came a decade after the Russia/Trump campaign investigation should not surprise anyone. No one holds a grudge like Trump who recently said, “I seethe a lot.”
In addition to Comey, the DOJ has gone after a host of Trump’s supposed “enemies.” Included have been Leticia James, attorney general of New York, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, former director of the CIA John Brennan, former special prosecutor Jack Smith, Senator Adam Schiff, and members of both the Biden and Obama administrations. Trump is so obsessed with Obama, who once made fun of him, that he recently posted online a video showing the former President and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.
Here is a great example of how our current President holds on to his gripes. Five and a half years have passed since Election Day 2020. Biden served an entire term. In the same time period scores of lawsuits over alleged fraud have turned up no evidence. Most recently the FBI seized 2020 ballots in the state of Georgia, on the premise that they were purposely miscounted, giving Biden a win in the state. If you think that this is going to be Trump’s last move in this matter, think again. He’s never going to let go of his absurd claim that he was cheated in 2020.
While most of Trump’s revenge efforts involve the DOJ, his minions in other departments have been willing to serve his revenge agenda. A good example arose when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that the Pentagon would investigate Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona after Kelly appeared in a video reminding military personnel that they could disobey illegal orders. Kelly received a letter of censure from Hegseth, who called the video “seditious.” Kelly could suffer a reduction in rank (he’s a retired Navy captain), lose some of his retirement benefits or even be called back to active duty.
While Trump used Hegseth to punish one of his political rivals, his Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents swarmed all over Democrat-led cities and states, arresting tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants in campaigns with names like Operation Metro Surge (Minneapolis/St. Paul) and Operation Midway Blitz (Chicago).
Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission, which licenses TV broadcasters who use the public airways, is also getting into the revenge business. The FCC is headed by a devoted Trump supporter named Brendan Carr who has threatened to review the licenses of any broadcasters he deems to be unfair to the President. Last week he went beyond the threat to actually notify the ABC network that its licenses were coming under scrutiny.
Trump, who previously sued ABC News for defamation and won a $16 million settlement, is going after the network over a joke made by late night host Jimmy Kimmel who has been a fierce critic for years. ABC dhas suspended its late-night host for five days during a similar dust-up in September.
This time around we’ll find out of Trump gets more revenge. Disney/ABC is trying to figure out how to respond to Trump’s temper tantrum. It could go to court, and likely prevail, in a fight over its licenses, or it could cave in to the pressure. Trump, who is always willing to take things to the extreme, is counting on this threat to persuade Disney into backing down, taking the easy option and suspending Kimmel, once again.
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As Trump abuses the government to carry out vendettas, he’s staying true to the psychological pathology he has exhibited his entire life. Read the various biographies of the man and you’ll discover that he was so disruptive and bullying as a school boy that his father sent him off to military school where he hazed younger kids and lied about his athletic prowess. After his school years, he built a false persona to convince the world, and his father, of his superiority. He also brawled in the press with anyone who dared criticize him.
Trump’s background is so much like Nixon’s that it’s uncanny. His father was, like Nixon’s, absent, demanding, and bullying. His mother was doting and permissive. Trump, like Nixon, used the word “saint” to describe her. In contrast, the President has called his father Fred “tough” and “defiant.” Others have said he was “brutal” and obsessed with building his real estate empire.
Psychologist Mary Trump, the President’s niece, has said Fred Trump was “a high functioning sociopath” who divided his children among themselves. As for Donald Trump himself, Mary has written that his “pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neuropsychological tests that he’ll never sit for.”
Many other mental health experts have warned of his pathologies. John Garter, a former psychology professor at Johns Hopkins, has said he suffers from “malignant narcissism.” In 2024 200 mental health professionals signed a letter affirming Gartner and warning that Trump is an “existential threat” to American democracy.
You don’t need to have a doctorate in psychology to see that there is something wrong with Donald Trump and has something to do with his upbringing. We all know that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and that men raised by distant fathers become obsessed with outdoing them in adulthood, hoping to win their love and admiration.
In the case of Trump, the drive to exceed his father made him into a insatiably ambition man willing to break the rules and the law to get what he wanted. This single-mindedness worked, as he became a prominent real estate developer, a public figure, a famous TV star, and then, as President, the most powerful person in the world. Along the way he has bullied, berated, and abused those who dared to get in his way.
Trump is, like Richard Nixon, “one of the most screwed-up people who ever lived.” I think it is clear he is the most deranged and dangerous President in history. He’s worse than Nixon because his drive for retribution is much more intense and he’s using more agencies and departments to go after his enemies. Also, he’s doing it all out in the open, which means he wants to intimidate all who might disagree with him. This makes us all potential targets.
We can answer Trump’s vengeful campaign in two ways. First, we must consistently call out his abuses. Whether we attend protests, write our members of Congress, or post of social media, our voices matter. Second, we need to support those whom he targets. If they have a legal defense fund, donate. We must stand together, unafraid, against this psychopath. We cannot let him destroy our democracy.
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