The Trump era is dominated by two questions. First, what did sixty million voters see in him? Second, what does Trump find to dislike in the democratic leaders of our allies and to admire in the tyrannical leaders of our enemies?

I think the answer to both questions may be the same. Trump is a theatrical mixture of two odious stock characters — the spoiled rich boy and the amoral thug — “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” meets “Scarface,” Richie Rich meets the mob.

The Trump persona seems to captivate his fans, which says nothing good about our culture, but at least he comes honestly by it, which is not true of many things in his life. Trump really is a spoiled rich boy. He never had to study, clean his room, worry about money, fear the draft, compete to get a job. It all came on a silver platter.

The source was his father who was a real estate thug who divided the world into killers and losers. Trump’s brother was designated a loser. Trump learned to be a killer as his father’s apprentice, though in good mob boss fashion he gets others to do the dirty work and take the fall. The real estate business brought him into close contact with the mob types he emulates, and law enforcement which he learned to outwit.

His father taught him the tricks of the trade including stiffing employees, cheating on taxes, violating any law that got in the way of profit, and using a phalanx of attorneys to bully any one who complained. It is a tribute to the power of money to insulate malefactors from justice that neither Fred nor Donald Trump ever spent a day in prison despite a lifetime of criminal activity.

Given this mindset, that of a thuggish, spoiled rich boy, it is no surprise that Trump has contempt for democratic leaders and, indeed, for democracy. Compromise is for the weak. Playing by the rules is for suckers. Doing the people’s bidding is for losers. Conning them is the name of the game, and money is how you keep score.

All his life he’s been able to buy and sell, intimidate or sue, weaklings like Emmanuel Macron, Theresa May, Justin Trudeau, and Angela Merkel. Playing by their rules is a joke. Why don’t they use their power to get ahead, to bully their neighbors instead of always nattering on about alliances, cooperation, and common interests? They should look out for Number One, like him!

His kinds of guys are Boris Johnson, Mohammed bin Salman, Kim Jong-Un, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Some are fellow spoiled rich boys. All are thugs, the kind of people who have contempt for the people, the rabble, the losers, the marks.

Johnson, who may be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, came from wealthy parents, attended the finest schools, was smart enough to excel but far preferred showing off as a campus debater and politician. He went into journalism, but soon got fired for making up stories. Solution? Become an opinion writer where truth was less vital.

He eventually found his metier in politics. His father was an important figure in the EU that Johnson now seeks to demolish for fun, and because it will advance his own rise. According to a recent profile in the “New Yorker,” his colleagues describe him as a “lazy, elitist, dishonest, racist.” He doesn’t exactly dispute it.

Part of Johnson’s shtick is to be boyishly outrageous. For instance, he has cheerfully admitted that “the terrible art of the candidate is to coddle the self-deception of the stooge.” That is, the voters. The trick is making the stooges think they are in on the joke and somebody else is the stooge.

MBS and Kim are spoiled rich princelings who, like Trump, rose to power over the shattered hopes of other members of their family. In their cases, by literally eliminating the competition.

Xi Jinping was a Communist Chinese princeling whose father was a highly placed party man, until he succumbed to the cut throat purges of the cultural revolution. Xi’s clawing his way back from outcast to president for life suggests he is a far tougher customer than Trump ever dreamed of being.

Putin’s pedigree is less impressive, but his ruthlessness is similar. He was a rising KGB thug when the collapse of the Soviet Union left him bereft. Soon enough, however, he was Boris Yeltsin’s right hand man, and a scant three years later in Yeltsin’s place, busily eliminating critics and collaborating with a cadre of oligarchs in the looting of the country.

The young Donald Trump yearned to be taken seriously by the Manhattan elite, but to them always remained a vulgar, tabloid fodder, rube from Queens whose tacky towers were defacing their skyline.

Now he yearns to be like the tyrants he imagines are his peers. Men who can write their own rules, rig elections, liquidate their critics and rivals, rip off their economies, control the courts, manipulate the media, and stage parades to celebrate themselves. Killers, not losers.

If he succeeds, the losers will be we, the people.