This morning I finished Mary Trump's book "Too Much and Never Enough." The theme is "how our family created the most dangerous man in the world."
It's not an easy read. The abuse and neglect that Donald and his siblings endured at the hand of their father, Fred Trump, Sr. was systematic and brutal. It destroyed Donald's older brother, Fred Jr. who eventually became an alcoholic and died by age 38.
Donald as the younger brother took a studied look at the situation and decided that their father was upset at his older brother for being too soft. So Donald took the other tact and became a bully to his siblings, began lying and cheating. His strategy was wildly successful and he supplanted his older brother in his father's favor.
I am not going further into the story line. But Mary Trump is a clinical psychologist who with devastating prose takes the Donald apart and lays him bare. The tone of the book is not vindictive. It is more like a technician disecting a bug in a biology lab. What we end up with is a picture of an emotional cripple without a moral compass, without normal human empathy or, for that matter, any genuine interest in anything other than his own self aggrandizement.
After watching him as president, I arrived at the conclusion that the man couldn't organize a game of marbles on a playground without adult supervision. I often wondered how he managed to stay in business despite five bankruptcies. The answer at first was that it was all daddy. Then when daddy was gone, it was the banks. And finally when the banks got tired of the Donald, he started getting money from overseas...Russia through Deutchebank. But some of this goes beyond the book.
I recommend Mary Trump's book. It is not an edifying read. I found the part about the Trump household while Donald and his siblings were growing up to be utterly depressing. The rest of the book has very little sweetness and light. But if you want to understand where Trump is coming from and why, it is a must read.
Don
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