With Simon & Schuster moving up the publication of clinical psychologist Dr. Mary Trump's explosive book that touches on her uncle Donald's numerous pathologies, news outlets have been scrambling to excerpt portions from the book that was released to the media today. The New York Times has a sampling, and they're chilling:
"As a high school student in Queens, Ms. Trump writes, Donald Trump paid someone to take a precollegiate test, the SAT, on his behalf. The high score the proxy earned for him, Ms. Trump adds, helped the young Mr. Trump to later gain admittance when he transferred as an undergraduate to the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton business school." (our emphasis)After all, Trump's father engaged a podiatrist to create a false bone spurs diagnosis to get out of the Vietnam War, so what's a little SAT test cheating? Then there's Trump's sister's evaluation:
"Even at the start of Mr. Trump’s campaign, his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired federal appeals court judge, had deep reservations about his fitness for office, Ms. Trump writes.As Dr. Trump is a clinical psychologist, her professional opinion of her uncle's mental state should carry weight -- and concern all but the most rabid of his cult:
'He’s a clown — this will never happen,' she quotes her aunt as saying during one of their regular lunches in 2015, just after Mr. Trump announced that he was running for president.
Maryanne Trump was particularly baffled by support for her brother among evangelical Christians, according to the book.
'The only time Donald went to church was when the cameras were there,' Ms. Trump quotes her aunt as saying. 'It’s mind boggling. But that’s all about his base. He has no principles. None!'” (our emphasis)
“'The fact is,' she writes, 'Donald’s pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neurophysical tests that he’ll never sit for.'
At another point she says: 'Donald has been institutionalized for most of his adult life, so there is no way to know how he would thrive, or even survive, on his own in the real world.'With all the books and articles about Trump's absolute unfitness and mental instability written so far, some may regard Dr. Trump's book just another straw. But her intimacy with the family and her credentials as a clinical psychologist make it impactful in a greater way.
Like other critics of the president, Ms. Trump takes issue in the book with the notion that Mr. Trump is a strategic thinker who operates according to specific agendas or organizing principles.
'He doesn’t,' she writes. 'Donald’s ego has been and is a fragile and inadequate barrier between him and the real world, which, thanks to his father’s money and power, he never had to negotiate by himself.'” (our emphasis)
(photo: The body language says so much)
2 comments:
I don't believe that any book about Trump is going to tell anything we don't already know about Donald and his dysfunctional family. A single glance into his history proves that he's a psychopath with no humanity or empathy. But Mary's book is a source of more detail about the family finances, which could prove very significant in the value of Trump's personal finances and how they figure in his presidency. They might even contribute to his downfall.
I don't need to buy the book, but I'm glad she's getting it out there. Maybe she'll convince someone who is still on the fence.
donnah -- You're right, we know so much about the Orange Menace already this book simply adds to that body of information. It won't sway his rabid cult, but perhaps it will sway some "on the fence," as you say. What lifts her book above the rest is her intimacy with the family and her educational pedigree as a psychologist. Finally, some details she reveals are getting under Trump's skin, e.g. the SAT cheating story: for an extreme narcissist to be called out on something that he brags about must cut him deeply.
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