“Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man

I finished reading “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man” by Dr Mary L Trump. I would say I was both informed and disappointed. First, it answered the question a mental health clinician wants to know about how a person comes to be like Donald J. Trump. She answered that question as well as gave a short diagnosis of his personality issues.

In the mental health field, personality disorders are often seen as born in childhood trauma and attachment issues. However, personality issues are only—generally--diagnosed as the person reaches adulthood. In our time, some are hedging their diagnostic skills and labeling young adults earlier and earlier.

While the well written “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” was well written by authorities in the field of psychiatry about their assessment of our latest president, nothing quite substitutes from someone right in the middle of the fray.

Dr Mary Trump is that. Perhaps like so many of us who pursue psychology, she was plagued with unanswered questions about her family and their inherent destructiveness. We don't know for sure if that was her motive. She does not go into her motives but simply tells the story of growing up as a Trump.

The two real stars of this book are Fred Trump, the patriarch of this dysfunctional family, and Donald J. Trump the favorite son. Mary's take was her father and Freddy's(her father) younger brother destroyed him because he was unlike them. He had a different dream and was not concerned with wealth or power. He wanted to be a pilot which he was, and loved in the air or being out on a boat with his friends. There is bitterness here, which I cannot completely dismiss. She watched her father ground down by his father and younger brother until he retreated into alcohol which ultimately killed him.

The reason I picked up this particular book was my curiosity about what kind of environment could have produced Donald J Trump. Sorry, it is a failing of the profession. Some of us like to know why and how. My hope was this book would provide insight into those questions. I must say it did.

Basically, what I learned from the author was Fred was a cruel sociopath whose primary focus was on making money any way he could. When I say that, I mean that—any way he could. So, legal boundaries were not an issue for him. Cooperating with organized crime was not a problem for him. He was a builder of buildings in Brooklyn and was proud of that. The fact that many of his building were nothing more than slums was not important.

That is the world into which Donald J. grew up. He was the anointed “one,” the one who had his father's blessing and according to Dr Mary Trump, it was because he was cut from the same bolt of cloth. He was a sociopath, layered with different kinds of personality disorders. She names a few. First there was antisocial(a pervasive, persistent disregard of the rights of others), narcissistic personality disorder, and one that surprised me, dependent personality disorder. This would explain his need to get out on the campaign trail and revel in the adoration of the crowd. He needs that affirmation.

What I did not expect was a more personal bitterness toward the family for what she labels as killing her beloved father because he was different. More than that the enabling which characterized the family and can now be seen in the administration of Donald Trump. Politicians don't realize their enabling of his reckless, illegal, and sociopathic behavior just emboldens him. Republican leadership around the country will pay the price of his careless, uncaring disregard for the health of voters who are facing new challenges with COVID. His determination to open the schools for the coming year has nothing to do with what is best for students or teachers, it has everything to do with his re-election. I believe it also has to do with his realization that if he fails to be re-elected, he will be prosecuted to the end of his life for his crimes committed before he became president.

We shall see.

Wash you hands, wear you masks for others, mind the gap, be patient, and be kind.