It was hard to watch President Biden give his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. Not because he wasn’t in command of his presentation, but because he was. His commanding presence made me feel bad about hoping he would step down and pass the baton to Vice President Harris, though I’m glad he did. 

I also felt bad about pundits who called Biden bitter, even though many praised his speech. Whether he remains angry is only for him to say.  If so, I think he’s entitled to that feeling.  He has earned it, according to Hungarian-American psychiatrist Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, who conceived of “destructive entitlement” and “constructive entitlement” in his theory of contextual family therapy. 

Nagy introduced the notion of “relational justice” – whether or not the “ledger” of give and take between a relationship’s members is balanced. Destructive entitlement usually arises from being given too little, though any harm can cause destructive entitlement. How that “earned entitlement” then gets expressed in one’s treatment of innocent others determines whether it becomes destructive or constructive. 

Biden has earned more entitlement than most – from the deaths of his young wife, baby, and son Beau to the insistence of many Democrat leaders who, despite Biden’s unwavering loyalty, were said to be disloyal to him when his determination to run again conflicted with what they thought best for the party and the country.   

Biden dealt with that last blow constructively.  He didn’t take revenge on those who wanted to oust him, instead channeling his feelings into constructive action, to help Vice President Harris win in November. His actions earned him constructively derived entitlement. 

Donald Trump, by contrast, is nothing but destructive entitlement, making all of us the innocent victims of his rage owing to the real or imaged slights he has suffered in his life. In her book “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” Trump’s psychologist niece Mary Trump located the root cause of her uncle’s destructive entitlement in their family’s “tragic combination of neglect and abuse.”  

Trump recently made his destructive entitlement explicit. According to the Associated Press, he stated, “I’m very angry at her [Kamala Harris] that she would weaponize the justice system against me and other people, very angry at her. I think I’m entitled to personal attacks.”   

This accusation is of course patently false – and also a perfect expression of destructive entitlement. As Nagy pointed out, one can become destructively entitled even if the perceived harms are imaginary, though in that case the entitlement isn’t earned.  

Trump seeks revenge against everyone he perceives to have harmed him – whether they did so or not. He must bring us all down to his base level. And despite his rhetoric, there’s no balance of give and take in a relationship with him, individually or collectively.  Everyone gives, he takes.  

That most Republican politicians have fallen prey to Trump’s destructive entitlement can be explained by their desire to stay in power, given Trump’s hold on the Republican electorate. These politicians are Trump’s willing enablers, and thus not Trump’s duped victims.  So too with Trump’s ultra-wealthy supporters, who know that he’ll keep them in their privileged places, well above the rest of us. 

The majority of Trump’s electorate is another story.  Trump makes false promises to the many who feel left behind, thereby heightening the entitlement they earned from whatever degradations and deprivations they may have suffered. That is what an authoritarian does.  

Authoritarians have always offered easy pseudo solutions, while providing outlets for their followers’ destructively entitled rage. JD Vance got it right before becoming Trump’s power-seeking vice-presidential pick, in calling Trump “America’s Hitler.” Indeed. Trump dances the “Fascist Three-Step,” as philosopher David Livingstone Smith dubbed it in 2016:  First, assert that everything is worse than you think. Second, blame other peoples (minorities) for the problem. Third, insist that you alone can fix it. 

It’s bad enough to respond to our personal earned entitlements by harming innocent others. But if we vote for a destructively entitled candidate like Trump, who blames innocent others for his dissatisfactions, the personal becomes political. In that case, we harm everyone, including ourselves.