Over the past few weeks, Donald Trump has been more obsessed than usual with his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, even going to far as to suggest (without a shred of proof) that the Obama administration illegally spied on the 2016 Trump campaign and giving rise to a Twitter hashtag, #Obamagate.

As you’d expect, Trump’s allegations are nothing more than a bogus conspiracy theory and a feeble attempt to divert attention from the fact that he failed to protect the United States and his bumbling has led to nearly 100,000 Americans dying from coronavirus.

So is Trump just gearing up for reelection and trying to gin up his base as he prepares to face presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who served as Obama’s vice president for eight years?

Actually, Republican insiders say it’s a lot more immature and petty that mere politics, because Trump apparently cannot get over the fact that Obama is more popular than he’ll ever be.

The Guardian reports that Tara Setmeyer, who served as a communications director for the GOP on Capitol Hill, says Trump is jealous of Obama:

“First off, Donald Trump has a problem where I think he’s just jealous of the fact that President Obama is still so admired. Number two, I think he has a problem with people of color who are in authority that don’t do the kind of song and dance that he wants them to do.”

While Obama was still in office, Trump repeatedly tried to question his legitimacy by helping spawn the “birther” movement, asserting that Obama wasn’t actually a U.S. citizen (even though he was born in Hawaii) and demanding proof of Obama’s American citizenship.

Matthew Miller, who was director of public affairs at the Department of Justice, notes that the real source of Trump’s anger and jealousy can be summed up in one word: Respect:

“There’s some racism there but, most of all, it’s driven by the fact that Obama has the thing that Trump has always craved but never achieved, and that’s respect. I’ve always thought that the respect that Barack Obama gets from people in this country and around the world is something that just eats Trump alive inside.”

Donald Trump will never be respected. He was a failure as a businessman and will likely go down in history as this country’s worst president. People don’t respect Trump. They laugh at him. He is an object of derision, mockery, and humiliating jokes. He knows that, and he knows just how inadequate he is.

Eat your heart out, Donald! You will never be the man or the statesman Barack Obama is and always will be.