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Former US President and likely 2024 Republic nominee Donald Trump at a campaign rally in National Harbor, Maryland, on Feb. 24, 2024.

At least two Allied leaders said that they were relieved, not shocked, when Japan suddenly attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.

US Secretary of War Henry Stimson wrote in his diary after receiving a call from Franklin D. Roosevelt that Hawaii was being attacked that his “first feeling was of relief.”

UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote in his memoir that he slept “went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved.” The two people knew what the future had in store. The sleeping lion, which had been on the fence about diving headfirst into World War II, had finally decided to step in, solving one of their headaches.

Most people would not have let things slide, but Americans, in particular, can’t bear to live with grudges. This is best demonstrated by the “War on Terror,” which ravaged the Middle East after 9/11, and the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden.

When President Barack Obama announced the killing of bin Laden in the middle of the night on May 1, 2011, you could see the joy on the faces of the thousands of people who crowded around the White House after he said, “Justice had been done.”

To Americans, the concepts of revenge, vengeance, judgment, justice, and punishment are inseparable. Justice is not a word used to express grandiose values, but used to crack down on the guilty.

The US is one of the rare developed nations which still upholds the death penalty. The unrealistically long prison sentences also show how much vengeance is valued.

The fact that so many protagonists in Hollywood movies are thirsty for revenge also symbolizes the importance of revenge in the US. In this culture, virtues such as moderation, patience, and tolerance are not emphasized.

So when former President Donald Trump declared himself the embodiment of vengeance at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in March 2023, saying “I am your justice” and “I am your retribution,” he tapped into the minds of many Americans.

He’s been talking about vengeance and retribution since then, going on to say “Success will be our revenge,” at this year’s CPAC held in February. For Trump, revenge means punishing President Joe Biden and mass lay-offs of federal employees. To Trump supporters, nothing matters more than revenge, not even his policies.

They are desperate for a chance to get back at those who stole the election from them (a blatant lie told by Trump), the pampered cosmopolitans who act as if they’re better than everyone else, those who helped or allowed China to grow, and those who look down on them as country bumpkins. It makes sense for them to support Trump, who, out of all the Republican presidential candidates, promises the best revenge.

Trump is followed around by worshippers on his campaign, much like how the devout followers of the biblical “avenging God” who states, “Vengeance is mine.”

Trump also has the ability to make his supporters internalize his personal crises as their own. His talks of revenge started at the height of a New York prosecutor’s investigation into the hush-money payments over a sexual encounter.

“They’re trying to punish you, not me,” he said, forming an ironclad community of destiny with his supporters.

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We’ve seen people like Trump before in the form of cult leaders. Hooligans who hide behind their followers, selling the name of god to satiate their own greed.

By Lee Bon-young, Washington correspondent

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