Trump's niece sits her "dysfunctional" family clan on the couch
In her book, psychologist Mary Trump attributes various mental pathologies of the US president to the treatment he received in his childhood
Donald Trump's mind has been for decades an addictive and never-ending mystery to Americans, seduced first by the aura of success he exuded on TV, then by his promise to put America First. Since he arrived in the White House, hundreds of mental health experts have dissected his movements and statements with medical eyes, issued diagnoses and warned the country of the risks of the "serious emotional instability" they see in the president.
No analysis, however, as detailed and close as the one signed by his niece in a book whose title translates as Too Much and Never Enough: How my family created the most dangerous man in the world. After years of watching him, Mary Trump, 55, with a doctorate in clinical psychology, has reluctantly put the Trump clan on the couch. She does not pretend to give an accurate medical assessment of the mental problems that she appreciates in her uncle, to whom she attributes an "antisocial personality disorder." "I don't mind calling Donald a narcissist," she says, but that adjective isn't all-inclusive.
"Donald's pathologies are so complex and his behaviors often so inexplicable that presenting an accurate and complete diagnosis would require a series of psychological and neurophysical tests so long that he will never undergo them," he explains in the book, advanced by the press while his uncle Robert, one of the invisible Trumps, is fighting in court to prevent Tuesday from reaching bookstores.
Mary Trump attributes all of the president's pathologies to the "malignant dysfunctional family" in which he grew up and, in particular, to the domineering character of the patriarch, businessman Fred Trump. In "The House", as she calls the family residence in Queens (New York) money was everything and asking for forgiveness was considered an intolerable form of weakness. "From what I know, my grandfather was not physically violent or particularly irritable," but he didn't need it, she says.
Mary Trump is the daughter of the eldest of the boys, the late Fred Trump jr. She wanted to be a pilot. The pressure to take over the family businesses probably contributed to his problems, the president admitted some time ago in an interview with The Washington Post in which he discussed the death of his brother, an alcoholic, at age 42.
The familiar treatment prevented Trump from developing "the full spectrum of human emotions"
Seeing how the patriarch humiliated Fred Jr. taught Donald to avoid the same fate and fueled his worst instincts, such as his penchant for bullying. On one occasion he hid his favorite truck from her just to watch him suffer. Nobody punished him. Being the loser was unacceptable. She recounts that at a recent family dinner at the Marianne White House she recalled how Fred Jr once threw mashed potatoes over her head. He was furious when he heard the cartoon.
“Donald needs to divide. It is the only way he knows how to survive: my grandfather made sure that was the case, for years facing his children against each other ”, in the face of the passivity of his mother. Lying was "a way of life," trying to live up to the father's expectations (according to the book, his sister Maryanne did his homework and paid someone to pass the entrance exam for him). All this prevented Trump from "developing and experiencing the full spectrum of human emotions," says the psychologist, who believes that these traits make him manipulable before leaders such as Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un.
"Mary, how busty you are!" Trump said to her niece when he saw her in a swimsuit
“She goes beyond narcissism. Donald is not only weak, his ego is such a fragile object that he needs to be puffed up all the time because he knows that he is nothing of what he claims to be. He knows they have never wanted him ”, says the author, that she does not overlook sad episodes in her own life, such as when she, as a child, found her father laughing at her and pointing a gun at her mother.
After the death of Fred jr, her clan took financial care of her and her brother, although she maintains that they were always trying to scam them and remembers with horror the family reunions for Thanksgiving. When she was 29, her uncle Donald hired her as a ghostwriter for her next book and invited her to her mansion in Mar-a-Lago (“as kitsch and awkward as she expected”). When he saw her in a swimsuit he approached and looked at her as if he had never seen her before: "My God, Mary, how busty you are!", He said.
The relationship with his family worsened forever in 1999 when, when his grandfather died, they found that the will did not treat them like other descendants. It was in those negotiations with her uncles to settle the conflict that she and her brother signed the confidentiality agreements that Robert now invokes to try to prevent the book (Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man) from being released. the sale. "He is free to comment on political issues or who he is voting for" but "he is forbidden to write about his relationship," he argues, "sad" because her niece "sensationalizes" and stains the memory of her parents and brother.
"Donald destroyed my father, I do not want him to destroy my country", the author justifies
Mary considered saying what she thinks of her uncle in 2016 but she kept quiet because she feared she would be "like the ungrateful and disinherited niece who seeks money or attention." Later, she was contacted by journalists from the New York Times. She was suspicious but in the end she gave them access to the Trump Organization's tax returns, which revealed tricks to pay less taxes. Seeing the number of people she has collaborated with, the silence of her family and "how she has crushed the rules, risked alliances and trampled the vulnerable" have led her to speak. “Following my grandfather's path with the complicit silence of his brothers, Donald destroyed my father. I can't let it destroy my country. " Trump's spokeswoman claims that the book is full of "falsehoods" and "absurd accusations."
