I recently read Mary Trump’s account of her uncle’s family and his behavior in her Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man (published by Simon & Schuster, 2020). I was curious to see what another psychologist would say about our president, one who knew him and his family from the inside out. I did not undertake this as a political cause but as one having worked for more than 40 years in the field of psychology – evaluating, diagnosing, and treating adults and children with a variety of difficulties. I’d only seen what we all see: a man prone to self-aggrandizement, bullying, business failures; a man who appears narcissistic, psychopathic, misogynist, racist, and scientifically ignorant. (Notice, please, I’m not referring to governmental policies but his character.) However, there is often a difference between one’s public image and behavior, and what transpires privately or within the family. We certainly have seen differences between the president’s words and his behaviors, and between his various claims and factual realities. I wanted to see if there was more depth to the man than is publicly presented, how much is basic character, and how much is just “playing to his base.” Are they character defects we see, or just public posturing for political gain?
Dr. Trump’s is not the first book written by a mental health professional about the president’s character. The first I knew of was A Clear and Present Danger (2016), which I read. It was followed by Trump on the Couch (2018), Rocket Man (2018), and The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump (2019). Such case studies of public figures are often criticized as violating the psychiatric “Goldwater Rule,” but this is countered by the “duty to warn” by mandated reporters.
In Mary Trump’s book, I was hoping to find some shred of humanity, something that would redeem this man’s evident defective character. Sadly, Mary Trump’s account shows little, if any, difference between the president’s private and public demeanor. In that regard, there is little new here. She describes an opportunistic, vindictive man who is focused on his own image of success at any cost, and who has been consistently bailed out of various legal and social difficulties by his father and lawyers.
It is, unfortunately, all too credible. What we see on the national stage is the predictable outgrowth of a terribly dysfunctional family. What Mary Trump gives us, however, is context and background. The only disappointing element was how it affirmed what has been so obvious to us in terms of the president’s character defects and how pervasive they are no matter the context. One might have hoped for some sign of humanity despite its absence in everything we see publicly. Cruelty seems to be a way of life for Donald Trump with image and revenge his only personal values. Truth and responsibility are alien to him. She hints at criminal mob connections, cheating on business deals, and tax fraud.
We’ve all seen his remarkable ability to inspire absolute and unquestioning devotion to his authoritarian personality. Dr. Trump’s observations and analyses extend to his enablers and followers, and why they would support a man who has no competence, no depth, no decency – a man desperate to fill his emptiness with media attention, sycophantic adoration, and revenge for those who betray him with facts or ethics.
One might charge that she herself carries a grudge because of the way her branch of the family was so badly treated, but her writing does not sound like a hatchet job. Rather, it reads almost like a clinical study as she gives account of behaviors, emotional strengths and weaknesses, intergenerational relationships, history, family dynamics, and character.
Given the politics of our day, I also read through many of the book’s reviews on Amazon’s website. I found a stark contrast between my observations and those who gave it low ratings. Some saw it as a whining diatribe, as nothing new, as boring; or attacked Dr. Trump as embittered. Some questioned how she could know some of the things she wrote about before she was born, either ignoring or failing to read how she explained researching many of those details. Apparently unhappy at what it means for someone to display such behaviors, one reviewer said it was full of psychobabble, but I found her psychological analyses to be rather restrained.
As in so many things, what we see depends on who we are (our own strengths and limitations), on what we are predisposed to seeing, and on what we hope to find.