In this revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him, Mary L. Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and Donald’s only niece, shines a bright light on the dark history of their family in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world’s health, economic security, and social fabric. Mary Trump spent much of her childhood in her … her childhood in her grandparents’ large, imposing house in the heart of Queens, New York, where Donald and his four siblings grew up. She describes a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse. She explains how specific events and general family patterns created the damaged man who occupied the Oval Office, including the strange and harmful relationship between Fred Trump and his two oldest sons, Fred Jr. and Donald.
A firsthand witness to countless holiday meals and interactions, Mary brings an incisive wit and unexpected humor to sometimes grim, often confounding family events. She recounts in unsparing detail everything from her uncle Donald’s place in the family spotlight and Ivana’s penchant for regifting to her grandmother’s frequent injuries and illnesses and the appalling way Donald, Fred Trump’s favorite son, dismissed and derided him when he began to succumb to Alzheimer’s.
Numerous pundits, armchair psychologists, and journalists have sought to parse Donald J. Trump’s lethal flaws. Mary L. Trump has the education, insight, and intimate familiarity needed to reveal what makes Donald, and the rest of her clan, tick. She alone can recount this fascinating, unnerving saga, not just because of her insider’s perspective but also because she is the only Trump willing to tell the truth about one of the world’s most powerful and dysfunctional families.
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The Trump family is NOT your average family. They are now and always have been dysfunctional. This book is an explanation of how this all started. The five Trump children learned at home, how to navigate the world. The problem is, it wasn’t a “normal” way of handling it. Fred Trump used the government and government programs to build his fortune. His skewed way of living and learning was passed down to his children. This book answers your questions about the trump in the White House.
I applaud Mary L. Trump for writing this book. She did a wonderful job of explaining where this family found it’s way of doing things. I also applaud Ms. Trump and her brother for their tenacity despite the blood in their veins and the last name they were given. Well written and organized, this book just builds on itself like building blocks making it easy to see what went wrong and when. If you are looking for a sleazy attempt to discredit donald trump, look elsewhere. This is first of all a book about the entire Trump family. Second, I’m sure it was cathartic for Ms. Trump to write. You can’t go wrong with this book and I hope Ms. Trump will write another book, on any topic, soon.
I found only one issue. I would like to have seen more about “where are they now” for the three remaining Trumps.
I gave this one 5 cheers out of 5 because Ms. Trump could have taken the sleazy road but she held true to her personal moral compass.
copy of book provided by author and I voluntarily reviewed it.
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man Audible Audiobook – Unabridged
Mary L. Trump PhD
Regardless of your particular political position, Mary L Trump’s book is well written and it does paint a dark, horrifying portrait of a confused and mentally ill man. She builds the character of this character of this man, had he not been the President of the United States, would probably be a serial criminal of the worst sort. I will be reviewing this as if it were fiction. I will not be commenting on the politics or policies of the forty-fifth President of the United States.
Filled with family lore and family pathos, it is possible to see what created this man, whether it be the sociopathy of his father or the near absence of his mother due to a number physical and mental illness. Dr. Trump carefully builds, brick by red brick (Fred Trump taught Donald and his brothers that red bricks were $1.00 cheaper) the different factors that created the man whom she calls “The Most Dangerous Man in the World”.
Much of the stories she tells are about not only Donald but about the whole family. First part of the book covers Fred Trump, Sr and his parents, particularly the German immigrant father, Freidrick Trump. It is clear that the pathology that led to Donald’s various mental illnesses and disorder. The sparse text reveals a family that would scare the Sawney Bean family into veganism.
Many of the vignettes that Dr. Trump shares are well-known. For instance the tale of the purchase of $3 million of chips by Fred Sr. The tale of woe regarding Donald Trump’s vast debt to various banks. But Dr Trump manages to tell the stories without embellishing them and still manages to keep the story interesting. Considering the effort that was put into keeping this book from publishing, readers would assume that grand secrets were revealed instead the darkness of a family with too much money, that was never enough for any of Fred Sr’s children.
Never seen as fully a villain nor never being the self-deprecating hero, the focus of this study is a sad, con-artist who was blinded by his own hype. It means little which side of the political divide one sits on, this is a fascinating story of a deeply dysfunctional family. There was no other way that the scion, Donald J. Trump, could become. His very pathology was the source That pathology drives this man to seek other men with a psychologically similar to his father: Putin, Kim and McConnell. These men and others have manipulated him to get what they want, whispering that he is the best, the smartest and the greatest. We discover this and so much more in the last 1/3 of the book. It is here that Dr Trump reveals her professional diagnoses and the danger it presents to Western Liberal Democracy. It is a fascinating study of a severely mentally ill and possibly suffering from the same disease that impacted his father and perhaps his brother, Freddie. Dr. Trump does dip into political discussion but only as a family member with the academic qualifications could.
I highly recommend this for anyone and everyone.
4 stars out of 5
https://www.amazon.com/Too-Much-Never-Enough-Dangerous/dp/B0898S8WP8
Although I have read some good satire about Donald Trump over the past several years, none of them compare to the account of his life, his childhood, his upbringing, given by his niece Mary L. Trump in TOO MUCH AND NEVER ENOUGH. Satire tends to treat serious issues in a humorous, if backhanded, way. Ms. Trump’s account is serious and pulls no punches in her descriptions of the way in which Fred Trump, the family patriarch, molded his family through division and fear.
I grew up in New York City at the same time Donald Trump did. I recall reading about him on Page 6 and thinking him a rich buffoon with nothing to offer. In this regard, I didn’t really find anything new in these pages. What was new was hearing from someone who knows him, (somewhat) up close and personal, describe his psychopathology in dispassionate and clinical terms while stating in no uncertain terms his blatant ignorance of everything.
I found the first paragraph of the Epilogue – “The Tenth Circle” – to exemplify the current presidency:
“On November 9, 2016, my despair was triggered in part by the certainty that Donald’s cruelty and incompetence would get people killed. My best guess at the time was that that would occur through a disaster of his own making, such as an avoidable war he either provoked or stumbled into. I couldn’t have anticipated how many people would willingly enable his worst instincts, which have resulted in government-sanctioned kidnapping of children, detaining of refugees at the border, and betrayal of our allies, among other atrocities. And I couldn’t have foreseen that a global pandemic would present itself, allowing him to display his grotesque indifference to the lives of other people.”
I guess it’s still not too late for a war, but the death toll created by one individual’s ignorance and indifference will surely stand as his legacy.
I have not read it