Bill's Book Report

Bill’s book report about the newest ‘breakthrough’ book that has sold more copies in a shorter time than any other book in America; selling nearly one million books in one day

 

"Too Much and Never Enough"

How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man

By Mary L Trump, PH. D.

 

This book is about Donald Trump written by his niece, a clinical psychologist who lived in the Trump family home along with Donald and his brothers and sisters for an extended period due to the death of her father, Donald’s oldest brother.

Mary explains the reason for the book in the closing lines of the book’s prologue.

“The events of the last three years, however; have forced my hand and I can no longer remain silent. By the time this book is published hundreds of thousands of American lives will have been sacrificed on the altar of Donald’s hubris and willful ignorance . If he is afforded a second term, it would be the end of American democracy.”

 

 

The book opens with a recounting of the Trump family history beginning with an immigrant from Germany, Friedrich Trump who left Germany in 1885 to avoid mandatory military service. He came to New York after an extended period in British Columbia where he developed an ownership status in several restaurants and brothels. He returned to Germany but was told by authorities that Germany was no longer his lawful home since his skipping out to avoid the draft was extremely bad form. He returned to New York with a bride in hand and the couple began a family, using the fortune from his Canadian investments to begin housekeeping in Queens, NY.

Two sons and a daughter soon arrived, all of whom grew up speaking German in the Trump household. The oldest boy was given the anglicized name of Fredrich for his father. In a twist of fate, the original Friedrich died prematurely when he contracted a corona virus then known as the Spanish flu in 1918 and the 12-year-old Fred became master of the house and the sudden wage earner for the family. The youngster took his sudden elevation as family head seriously and he began doing odd jobs for neighbors to help his mother manage their expenses. They managed nicely since the original Friedrich had left a financial legacy – $300, 000, a sizeable inheritance for the time when the average wage was 22 cents per hour.

For some reason, the youngster who became known as Fred took an interest in construction and decided that he could build garages as a means of earning his fortune. The boy began to study the building trade intensely, having no other interests beyond garage building. With his mother’s help, he became successful, earning a builder’s license and constructing garages for the new-fangled automobiles that seemed to be cropping up everywhere.

The construction business exactly fit Fred’s personality and his need to be constantly busy in the business of earning money. As he matured, he began spending every minute of his free time pursuing his business as it became the single focus of his life. Fred was a high functioning sociopath, a rare but not uncommon condition afflicting 3% of the population, 75% of whom are men. Symptoms of sociopathy are a lack of empathy, a complete indifference to right or wrong, abusive behavior, a penchant for lying, and a complete disregard for the feelings and rights of others. Fred displayed each of these symptoms. His personal life with his family of three boys and two girls was dictated by his sociopathy and his absence as he worked most of the time, personally managing every detail of his growing business, and, at the end of each day, picking up and saving any nails that had fallen to the ground.

His wife and the mother of his children had her own problems. Her last pregnancy was difficult and the medical remedy at the time and place she was cared for involved the surgical removal of her ovaries and uterus. The sudden loss of her female hormones provoked the onset of severe osteoporosis, all of which was undetected at the time. Nine months later her oldest daughter Maryanne found her unconscious in bed and bleeding profusely. Maryanne awoke her father Fred who arranged for his wife’s emergency admission to a local hospital. Fred told Maryanne to help the younger children and then go to school and he would call her. Doctors told Fred that it was unlikely his wife would live another day. Maryanne expected the worse when she got the call from her father. “She is going to pull through,” he said, without any words of comfort or support for the youngster. Maryanne became the caretaker of the children including the baby Donald who was just 2 and ½ years old. From that point on, the children had little care from their mother and none at all from their father who continued his unrelenting attention to his work.

Fred’s single focus was the earning of ever more money without regard to the illegality of the practices he implemented. He expanded his construction business into one of development; retaining ownership of everything he built that he used as rental property. Soon the development and rental business exceeded his construction business as the weekly and monthly receipts poured in from his renters.

The oldest boy in the family was named Fred but called Freddy. Fred Senior occasionally took Freddy to work with him to begin learning the business. It didn’t work. Freddy soon became the object of Fred Senior’s abuse when he was unable to comprehend the subtleties of the business or display what Fred called ‘a killer instinct.’ The humiliating abuse often occurred within the hearing the 2^nd son, Donald. The abuse became more severe and only ended when Freddy found excuses for not accompanying Fred Senior to work. Donald learned to avoid his father’s abuse by lying as he watched his older brother use that technique to escape abuse by inventing reasons to avoid the real estate business.

Freddy tried to escape the family business by joining the military. He was successful, well-liked by both his peers and officers. He decided to apply for flight training which ultimately led to him becoming a pilot. After his service, he continued flying, winning qualifications to become a commercial airline pilot. His continued success led him to become one of the long-distance airline pilots with enviable flight assignments from coast to coast. None of his successes was enough for Fred, he belittled his son’s choice of a career calling him a bus driver in the sky who earned a pittance compared to Fred’s earnings. The denigration of his skills by the man whom he most wanted to impress drove Freddy to despair. Donald watched from close-up as Freddy descended into alcoholism from his father’s continued abuse. Freddy died at age 42.

Donald was unable to control himself in High School. His atrocious behavior was disrupting classes and even Fred’s intervention was seen to be insufficient to ward off a scandal. The solution Fred reached was to remove Donald from his regular school and send him to a military school to help his wayward behavior. Surprisingly, Donald managed to follow the rigid rules and behave sufficiently well to graduate from the academy. After the military academy training, it was decided he should go to college. His older sister Maryanne helped with his homework and Donald paid another youngster to take his SAT tests for him to insure he would be qualified for university training. No one knows about Donald’s university grades or behavior since the President has threatened the school with lawsuits should they reveal his academic record.

Before Freddy’s death, Fred Senior had taken on a new project; the installation of his son Donald in the family business despite his earlier promise to Freddy. One part of the business that Fred had carefully cultivated was wining and dining politicians who had influence over New York’s zoning regulations and the awarding of lucrative building contracts. It was the singular thing that Donald could manage that didn’t require any knowledge of the building trades nor the work needed to manage the sizable rental business. Besides, Donald liked the idea of being seen with high-ranking officials in city government and Fred didn’t mind the free publicity that Donald generated by his constant publicity stunts generally involving beautiful women and expensive dates.

Before the elder Trump increasingly fell victim to dementia, Donald began his own business career in various business deals, most of which were abysmal failures such as the casinos in Atlantic City. Fred Trump regularly bailed out his son until his death when Donald became the leader of the Trump business empire. As a testament to his fabled business acumen, Donald was forced into bankruptcy five separate times.

The psychologist Mary Trump analyzes the psyche of both Freddy and his little brother Donald and concludes that each was irretrievably damaged by their father with the difference being that Donald learned from watching the harsh treatment of Freddy on techniques he could use to avoid the pain from his father’s treatment. He learned never to show pain from mistreatment by his father. Fred Trump did the same. His constant refrain, “everything is great,” belied the fact that his wife and son were both suffering physical and mental anguish. Donald watched his dad and learned to lie, avoid responsibility, and gain riches from his father by avoiding taxes, and using public officials for favors once they were given sufficient contributions to their secret accounts.

The psychologist niece offers a sympathetic view of Donald’s many character flaws; ‘it was what and how he was taught.’ Near the end of analysis she says, “Donald today is much as he was at three years old: incapable of growing, learning, or evolving, unable to regulate his emotions, moderate his responses or take in and synthesize information.”

This book provides essential information for understanding the motivations for Donald Trump’s bizarre behavior as President. Unlike other failed presidencies, like those of Warren Harding (corruption scandals involving theft) and Richard Nixon, (lawless behavior condemned by both Congress and the Supreme Court), our nation was able to remove the blight and move on, recovering our path in a few short years after those men left the Presidency. This time the behavior of our Chief Executive is so egregious that many psychologists (including Mary Trump) believe that the mentally deficient man serving as our President will undo the character of our great nation and destroy democracy in the United States for the foreseeable future. In their view, the damage he has done to the United States government likely can be corrected by subsequent Administrations after four years, however; corrective action may be impossible if the damage continues for a second four years as the aberrant behavior becomes institutionalized throughout the government. It is a chilling conclusion.

 

The Coffee Klatch Changes

                         The Coffee Klatch Changes

It occurred to me recently that I haven’t told you about recent events at my regular coffee klatch with my friends from the neighborhood. The reason for my delinquency is the dreaded corona virus. For several weeks I avoided the neighborhood gathering, attempting to follow our Governor’s directive (that woman from Michigan), who issued ‘stay at home’ orders. Now that she has lifted the orders, I renewed my daily coffee mooching over the last two weeks, riding my bicycle to the morning event instead of engaging in my former walk to the cottage in the woods.

Returning to the coffee klatch after a months-long absence was almost as if I hadn’t been gone. A couple of the men nodded as I walked in, but beyond that it seemed that no one had noticed my absence. Apparently, my conversational brilliance at the table wasn’t indispensable, after all. Despite the deflation of my ego, I joined the ongoing conversation about the myriad failures of our President and it soon seemed to me that I hadn’t been absent at all.

The only other new conversational thread of the group beyond our normal complaints about the weather and the ferocity of our mosquitoes, was our observations about corona virus. Since we are all in the category of ‘most likely to die from the virus’ our approach was generally conservative; we all seemed to agree that the most stringent actions need to be taken to combat the pandemic. We also agreed that wearing of masks and maintaining social distance was mandatory. We only mitigated that firmly held belief when it was necessary to slurp down the free coffee and eat the odd doughnut that one or another of us would bring for the group. For my part, I tried to sit as far away from the dining table as possible without offending Josie, the only dog who attends our klatch and begs for treats from us.

This morning’s klatch was different. For one thing, we had a new participant; one who was strikingly different from us North Woods men normally around the table. The new member of the klatch was a woman, she who made the coffee. The host of our klatch in whose kitchen we have sat for the last dozen years was Jerry Boone, a direct descendant of the famous Boones from Kentucky. Jerry had lived alone for much of that period as he lost his wife to cancer shortly after the klatch began. The woman who attended our klatch for the last several days was his daughter who had come to help Jerry after his recent health reversal.

This morning I said goodbye to Jerry for the last time. His daughter told me that she will be taking Jerry to her home as soon as she completes the necessary arrangements for his move. Jerry is now in hospice care following a brief stay at a local hospital while I was absent. Earlier, a heart doctor had told Jerry that he needed a new heart valve, that his own valve was badly leaking. Jerry decided not to submit to the surgery and, as his condition deteriorated, hospice care was the only remaining option. In recent days, he has suffered from confusion and reduced mobility while the hospice nurse arranged for him to be tethered to an oxygen tank. It became clear to his daughter that around-the-clock care was necessary and she stepped forward to the relief of those of us who watched Jerry’s quick decline.

Jerry’s confusion today seemed a little less pronounced than in recent days. He seemed at peace with his and his daughter’s decision about moving as a part of his ongoing journey. As I stood to leave his kitchen forever, he seemed to understand as I bid him goodbye. He urged me to find a younger man to host a new coffee klatch.

Although I didn’t tell Jerry, I don’t expect to find another coffee klatch like his. The parting may have been sadder for me than for him. Sometimes, life is harder than other times.