The most telling revelation from all the chronicles of Donald Trump's business career is his obsession with prevailing over his adversaries, regardless of the norms trashed to do so. He simply cannot tolerate being a loser. Lying, stiffing contractors, filing strategic bankruptcies, and fraud, were all employed to "win" no matter what. (This behavior characterized his sexual exploits too, but that is another story).

This pathological flaw led directly to Trump's scheme to sow doubt about the electoral system, first in 2016, when he repeatedly suggested that the election would be corrupt if he did not win. Then, as we all know, he went into overdrive in 2020, claiming that the election would only be legitimate if he won. When he lost, Trump and his allies mounted dozens of bogus legal challenges to the 2020 outcome, and, when those failed, Trump incited a violent mob to attack the Capitol in an effort to scuttle certification of the election on 1/6/2021.

We are now at a perilous time as Trump doubles down on his message that he can only lose in November if the election is corrupted by fraud. His campaign rhetoric is increasingly unhinged and threatening, and, once again, his followers are being primed to believe falsehoods about the election should he lose. Furthermore, his allies are laying the legal groundwork for challenging the vote in battleground states, even if, as in 2020, their claims are baseless.

Aides to Trump who were in the White House with him on January 6 have testified that he relished the mayhem and that he spurned numerous requests to call off the rioters as they trashed the Capitol, beat police officers, and called for the hanging of Mike Pence. Reliable testimony is that Trump said "so what" when he was told that Pence had been removed to a secure location for his own safety.

We don't know who will win the election. We do know that if Trump doesn't win he will uncork every possible challenge, no matter how ludicrous, to avoid that worst of all labels: loser. If his followers riot, storm election facilities, and attack election officials, he will watch in narcissistic awe and bask in the misguided, frenetic, adulation of those he has bamboozled.

There is one area in which Trump may be the greatest of all time. He is a great American con man who has convinced millions of his fellow citizens that he actually cares about them. Nothing could be further from the truth. As numerous former Trump administration officials have emphatically stated, he cares only about himself.