As human beings, you’d think we’d be better at understanding how our minds work. We are the most rational creatures in existence, capable of great mental feats, and we still struggle to grasp the emotional complexity that makes us who we are. We have an entire science dedicated to it now. Psychology hopes, through study and observation, to come up with some sort of biological or behavioral explanation for why we do what we do, and why we think the way we think. But still, males struggle to understand females, parents wrestle with their kids’ choices, and an entire nation fails to self-diagnose its woes.

The man who got closest to a suitable diagnosis is now sitting in the White House. He’s still perhaps one of the only politicians who understands his voter base, its psyche, and what it ails from: discontentment. But what Trump doesn’t understand is that discontentment doesn’t remain discontentment. Thanks to psychology, we know that base emotions can spiral in somewhat of a snowball effect if left unchallenged. Discontentment breeds anger, anger breeds rage, and on and on until something breaks and someone snaps.