While thinking about today's attempted bomb attacks against Soros and Clinton, I hit on what I think is a semi-original interpretation about what Trumpism really is and why it's so dangerous. To get there, I'm going to start with an old quote from Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. It might not have originated with him, but he's the one best known for it and I remember seeing it on many cube walls when I briefly visited the Emerald City (it was just three buildings then) and had the pleasure of thwarting Oracle engineers' attempts to steal the source code we were there to work on.

Winning is not enough. All others must lose.

The sentiment being expressed here is jealousy. For the sake of clarity, I'll distinguish that from envy or covetousness. Whereas those are the desire to have what others have (with or without them ceasing to have it), jealousy is the desire for others not to have something. It's a desire for exclusion.

Trumpists are, first and foremost, jealous. I don't mean that they're necessarily evil. People can be jealous because they believe they are uniquely entitled to something, and the mere act of others desiring it is an affront to the natural order. The obvious example, and the most common use of the word, would be a jealous husband's or wife's fairly reasonable belief that they and they alone are entitled to certain kinds of spousal affection. Less obvious examples might include a diary, or anything made with one's own hands. It's not crazy to think of some things as private, and not subject to sharing.

People can also be jealous because they think of prosperity in purely relative terms. This should not seem too strange, considering that the importance of relative rather than absolute financial prosperity is one of the strongest predictors of individual happiness. This is a well known and well studied result in sociology, across wealth levels and cultures. This kind of jealousy might be a bit shadier than jealousy driven by privacy/exclusivity, but it's still not entirely evil.

All of this brings us back to Trump and his followers. Their special take on jealousy, and what makes it truly worthy of condemnation, is that they've taken the idea of relative prosperity to its ultimate conclusion - that the difference is the only thing that matters. They don't believe that pushing others down is almost as good as raising themselves up; they think the two are exactly the same both practically and morally. Destroying others' material wealth is the same as wealth creation, in such a mindset. To make a winner is to make a loser, and vice versa.

Right-wing complaints about the "left wing mob" and "words turn into danger" aren't just hypocritical projection in light of their own tribe sending actual bombs to enemies (though they are that). They're also a reflection of the belief that safety is something they're jealous of. To let others be safe is to be less safe oneself. Ditto when they turn a deaf ear to Black Lives Matter or #MeToo. When they seek to define "transgender" out of legal existence, they're making the point they're jealous about freedom too. To them, taking away other people's rights is the same thing as standing up for their own. That's how we get phrases like "defense of marriage" uttered without a trace of irony or self-awareness.

There's another saying that also comes to mind here: everyone is a hero in their own narrative. As awful as this jealousy might seem once laid bare, the people in its thrall don't see anything wrong. They think they're fighting the good fight. When it's all about the difference, asking for equality is highway robbers, and robbers are bad people who deserve to be punished. It even makes a certain kind of sense, in a circular and heartless kind of way. That's what makes it so scary.