Too Much and Never Enough

Donald Trump's niece Mary Trump wrote this fabulous revenge book that was just published this morning. Mary Trump is a licensed psychologist who covered the life of the family from its beginnings with Fred Trump marrying his Scottish wife Mary Anne MacLeod.  It ends in 2020 at the end of Donald Trump's first term in the White House.  Within the book's pages, niece Mary Trump portrays her famous uncle as never having emotionally attached to his parents, his mother in particular, due to parental neglect that began when he was two years old.  She writes that the behavior of infants and toddlers is a form of attachment behavior, which seeks a positive, comforting response from caregivers. Uncle Donald and his younger brother Robert did not obtain any positive responses from their parents.  The author calls this child abuse.  By the time he was four, Donald Trump had learned all of the behaviors that he continues to exhibit today.

Uncle Donald was the fourth of five children.  When he was two years old his mother was found on the floor of a bathroom bleeding.  She had an emergency hysterectomy and two additional surgeries for medical problems that stemmed from the hysterectomy.  In essence, she was not available to raise her children until Uncle Donald was four.  During those two years of his life, he learned from his father that it was better to not be needy and began acting as if nothing ever bothered him.  Fred was proud of his brashness because it showed that he was tough.  He learned to bully, lie, cheat and steal from his siblings as way to becoming successful.  In the Trump family success was defined as not being humiliated by Fred.  Mother Mary Anne was never able to develop an attachment with her second son Donald after she recovered from her surgeries.  The author does not speculate why other than Mary Anne was constantly breaking bones due to osteoporosis that set in after the hysterectomy. 

The author is the daughter of Fred Trump, Jr., the oldest son and expected heir to the Trump Companies.  Throughout the book she upholds her father as the only member of the family to ever support themselves financially.  Fred Jr. did not want to work for his father and pursued being a commercial pilot until the family coerced him to quit his job at TWA and return to working for Trump Companies.  None of his siblings ever supported themselves, preferring to take Fred's money instead.  Yet Fred Jr. was ridiculed by his siblings, especially Donald, as being a failure because he worked as a pilot.  He also served in the Air Force National Guard which the family thought was a waste of time. Fred Jr. died when the author was 16.

I have to be a spoiler her and say that Mary Trump wanted revenge against the family for what they did to her father and she gets her revenge.  On the last page of the book she accuses Uncle Donald of being a mass murderer as his inaction caused many deaths from COVID-19. She also writes that he knows that no one loves him and never will...and he killed her father.  

The book is a fast read and is a fascinating look at the psychology behind the dysfunctional first family. It is a must read.