Donald J. Trump has been lustful lifelong. Lifelong he has lusted for money and power; sex and success; women and attention. But, lifelong, a single lust has transcended the others – his lust for money.
In a book titled Leaders Who Lust, my coauthor and I defined lust this way. A psychological drive that produces intense wanting, even desperately needing to obtain an object, or to secure a circumstance. When the object has been obtained, or the circumstance secured, there is relief, but only briefly.
Soon lust returns, again to be all-consuming. On the plus side a leader who lusts is a force of nature. On the minus side, a leader who lusts is driven by a single passion that crowds out everything, and everyone else.
Since he first ran for president of the United States in 2015 it has been widely assumed that Trump’s overweening desire was for power. During the first year of his second term this assumption was reinforced by his unyielding demand for abject loyalty, and that those who denied him be punished.
But Trump’s lust has never been for power. Or at least not power per se. Rather power has always been and it still is a means to an end. A means for him to satisfy his lust which is for money, not policy.
In the last 24 hours were shock and awe at the revelation that in 2025 Trump’s revenue jumped to at least $2.2 billion – staggeringly more than it was before he became president a second time. And, obviously, staggeringly more than any other president in American history.
People are wringing their hands, seemingly stunned by what Trump himself has trumpeted as long as he’s been in the public eye. When he first ran for president, in 2016, Trump gleefully boasted, “My whole life I’ve been greedy, greedy, greedy. I’ve grabbed all the money I could get. I’m so greedy.” And once he won the White House, the edifice itself has testified to his obsession with abundance and affluence. All that gilt, all that gold? Silent signs of Trump’s lust.
From a psychological perspective it’s far more instructive to think of President Trump as a kleptocrat than as an autocrat. They’re related, of course – the lust for money and the drive for power. But they are not the same and, in this case, the first dominates and drives the second, not the other way around.
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For more on lust generally, and on Trump and lust specifically see:
Barbara Kellerman and Todd Pittinsky, Leaders Who Lust: Power, Money, Sex, Success, Legitimacy, Legacy (Cambridge University Press, 2020.
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