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So I reviewed the Mary Trump book: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/09/real-villain-mary-trumps-family-tell-all-isnt-donald-its-fred/
But like with any review, there are things I didn't have space or time to discuss, stuff that is interesting but not vital to include in the review. So I'm going to run through the book and point out some stuff. Thread...
But like with any review, there are things I didn't have space or time to discuss, stuff that is interesting but not vital to include in the review. So I'm going to run through the book and point out some stuff. Thread...
First, Mary Trump is funny! She captures people in quick, memorable descriptions. On seeing the VP in the WH, for instance:
"Mike Pence continued to lurk on the other side of the room with a half-dead smile on his face, like the chaperone everybody wanted to avoid." (2)
"Mike Pence continued to lurk on the other side of the room with a half-dead smile on his face, like the chaperone everybody wanted to avoid." (2)
We know Don Jr. sucks up to his dad in public. But he does in family gatherings, too. Very awkward. When the extended family gathered in the WH for the birthday of Donald's sisters, Jr. gave a campaign-style toast. "Last November, the American people saw something special..." (3)
Maryanne, the oldest of the Trump siblings and a Catholic convert, freaked out when evangelicals started supporting Trump. "What the fuck is wrong with them? The only time Donald went to church was when the cameras were there. It's mind-boggling. He has no principles. None!" (4)
Mary writes that at family meals with his siblings, Donald "talked about all of the women he considered ugly fat slobs or the men, usually more accomplished or powerful, he called losers while my grandfather and Maryanne, Elizabeth and Robert all laughed and joined in." (5)
Trump talks about US interests solely in terms of $$, like NATO is ripping us off, etc. Mary says his father taught him to think that way. "The costs and benefits of governing are considered in purely financial terms, as if the US Treasury were his personal piggy bank." (6)
The first four chapters, dealing with the Trump family childhood, are organized under one section of the book titled "The Cruelty Is the Point" -- evoking the @TheAtlantic essay by @AdamSerwer: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/
She also highlights his work in her Author's Note. (7)
She also highlights his work in her Author's Note. (7)
Donald's mother, Mary, had serious health problems when Donald was a toddler (emergency hysterectomy, multiple surgeries) and as a result was simply not around/able to care for him much. But their father was incapable of filling the void, so they younger kids were lost. (8)
Mary on Donald's paternal grandfather: "Friedrich, born in Kallstadt, a small village in western Germany, left for the United States when he turned eighteen in 1885 in order to avoid mandatory military service." He made $$ owning restaurants & brothels in British Columbia. (9)
Fred Trump, Donald's father, was a big fan of Norman Vincent Peale's THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING. It is one of the books/influences Donald Trump has often mentioned in his own books (10)
Mary Trump on how Donald's father (Fred) dealt with children: "He was still and formal around kids, he never played ball or games of any kind with them, and it seemed as if he had never been young." (11)
Trump sometimes brags about his uncle John, an MIT professor. But the Trump kids were taught that he was a poor example, "soft and, though not unambitious, interested in the wrong things, such as engineering and physics, which Fred found esoteric and unimportant." (12)
When Donald was 7 and Freddy 14, Donald wouldn't stop tormenting their younger brother at dinner. So Freddy picked up a bowl of mashed potatoes and dumped it on Donald's head. "It was the first time that Donald had been humiliated." Decades later he's still pissed about it. (13)
