If the secret to understanding a strongman is to identify his greatest weakness, one place to start with Donald Trump is his obsession with his own eventual obituaries. Trump knows that they will mention his history-making presidencies, his ostentatious wealth, and his unusual charisma—but he also is aware that when he dies, people will remember his conviction on 34 felony counts, and that there is nothing he can do about it. Even now, White House officials have told me, Trump rages about how his guilty verdict is sure to be mentioned way up high in his obituaries.

Trump’s fixation on all of this leapt to mind today when I heard that he’d called for the arrests of the governor of Illinois and the mayor of Chicago—not just because it explains Trump’s psychology, but also because this obsession is one of the driving motivations of his revenge crusade, which is now escalating dramatically.

It bears pausing on the starkness of these facts: The president of the United States today demanded the jailing of two elected officials who belong to the opposing political party. Trump did not offer evidence that Governor J. B. Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson had committed a crime, nor did he even suggest what charge either man would face, though the outburst presumably stemmed from their opposition to Trump sending the National Guard to Chicago to protect ICE officers.

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This, of course, is hardly the first time Trump has urged the