This is so much easier to read than Bolton’s book. I’ve only managed to get through the Prologue and the first Chapter so far, but that’s only because I haven’t been able to dedicate a few hours to the book yet. I’m fast becoming a Mary Trump fanboy.
Prologue
Mary starts out bemoaning the fact that Donald has ruined her name for her. She quickly starts throwing body blows and doesn’t let up. She points out that everything in the tRump International Hotel has Donald’s name all over it — from the shampoo to the wine in the mini-bar.
Even Pence took a shot:
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.
During her tour of the White House shortly after Donald took office:
Donald pointed vaguely once in a while and declared, “This place has never looked better since George Washington lived here.” The historian was too polite to point out that the house hadn’t been opened until after Washington had died
At dinner (after the tour):
Each of the waiters carried a bottle of red wine and a bottle of white. Real wine, not TRUMP wine. That was unexpected
After dinner:
… Donald made some perfunctory remarks about my aunts’ birthdays, after which he gestured toward his daughter-in-law. “Lara, there,” he said. “I barely even knew who the fuck she was, honestly, but then she gave a great speech during the campaign in Georgia supporting me.” By then, Lara and Eric had been together for almost eight years, so presumably Donald had at least met her at their wedding. But it sounded as if he hadn’t known who she was until she had said something nice about him at a campaign rally during the election. As usual with Donald, the story mattered more than the truth, which was easily sacrificed, especially if a lie made the story sound better.
I’m getting the feeling Mary doesn’t think much of her uncle. She points out that her family get together at the White House lasted less time than tRump’s visit with Kid Rock, Sarah Palin and Ted Nugent.
Next, we are treated to a fairly sardonic recounting of how tRump managed to get elected.
The media failed to notice that not one member of Donald’s family, apart from his children, his son-in-law, and his current wife said a word in support of him during the entire campaign.
Mary tells us that Fred tRump was a shitty father to Donald (and his siblings) which ended up warping Donald for life. She follows that with a mini-bio of Donald’s business failures and eventual rescue by a TV show and its producer, Mark Burnett.
Mary lists her academic qualifications and then addresses the diagnoses we’ve seen posited for Donald. She agrees that Donald is a narcissist and meets all of the criteria outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). But, she says that diagnosis is to simplistic. She notes that Donald also meets the criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder and Dependent Personality Disorder. He might have a learning disability. Does his consumption of Diet Coke cause a caffeine-induced sleep disorder? What about the effects of his diet? Her real point is we’ll never know all that’s wrong with her uncle because he’ll never consent to being tested.
The prologue finishes up on this theme:
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.
…
Donald, following the lead of my grandfather and with the complicity, silence, and inaction of his siblings, destroyed my father. I can’t let him destroy my country.
Holy smokes! Mary just doused her uncle in gasoline, stuffed an M-80 up his ass and lit him on fire. I’ve excerpted just some of the highlights. tRump is well and truly damned and we aren’t even into the meat of the book yet.
Part One: The Cruelty is the Point
Chapter One: The House
Donnie was 2½ when his mother fell ill and essentially abandoned him. His father, the sociopath, was useless as a caregiver, so Donnie was on his own. His need for attachment as a child was never met.
In order to cope, Donald began to develop powerful but primitive defenses, marked by an increasing hostility to others and a seeming indifference to his mother’s absence and father’s neglect. The latter became a kind of learned helplessness over time because although it insulated him from the worst effects of his pain, it also made it extremely difficult (and in the long run I would argue impossible) for him to have any of his emotional needs met at all because he became too adept at acting as though he didn’t have any. In place of those needs grew a kind of grievance and behaviors—including bullying, disrespect, and aggressiveness—that served their purpose in the moment but became more problematic over time. With appropriate care and attention, they might have been overcome. Unfortunately for Donald and everybody else on this planet, those behaviors became hardened into personality traits because once Fred started paying attention to his loud and difficult second son, he came to value them. Put another way, Fred Trump came to validate, encourage, and champion the things about Donald that rendered him essentially unlovable and that were in part the direct result of Fred’s abuse.
tRump’s grandfather Friedrich, the draft dodger and brothel owner, died of the Spanish flu in 1918. [You’d think tRump could at least get the date right.] That put tRump’s 12 year-old father into place as the man of the house. He became obsessed with the building trade and with his mother as a partner founded E. tRump and Son. He builds the business and fathers children Mary MacLeod, whom he married in 1936. Donald shows up in 1946, the fourth of five children.
Fred was good at sucking up to politicians so he ended up getting some fat government contracts. He didn’t have a very high opinion of the people who ended up living in the apartments he constructed.
Fred ended up joining Norman Vincent Peale’s Marble Collegiate Church after becoming enamored of The Power of Positive Thinking. [Maybe tRump comes by his prosperity gospel connections through his father?] Fred believed that your value as a person was based almost exclusively on what you owned. He passed this value system on to Donald.
That’s it for today. Tomorrow’s Shade will start with Chapter Two: The First Son (Mary’s father) and we’ll see how far we get.
Up the Resistance!
Memaliciousness
Ad(s) of the Day
Cut and Paste Department. This is the regularly scheduled plea for readers. I’ve still only had to make two memes. You have it within your power to make me work. If you spread the word about Evening Shade and your spreadee announces themselves in the comments, you will become eligible to receive your very, very special noprize of a meme of your very own. All you have to do is jump up and get out there and start carnival barking, cajoling, proselytizing (or pimping, if you are of an irreligious bent). You could even pester and push. Procrastination is not an option — it’s a way of life.
Some guy named NotNowNotEver did today’s GNR. If you haven’t yet, he’d appreciate it if you ran over there and read it over and over until you could recite in your sleep: We're Not Messing Around - Good News Roundup, Bluesday July 14th, 2020
Goodie continues the countup to the election: Biden Understands America!: Day 10 of 100 Days of Loving Joe Biden
BeeD returned from hibernation to lament the early opening of California: From the Dumbass Files: Here We Go Again!
Yosef 52 and Joe Biden need our help: As Biden Says, Ignore the Polls. There is Work to Be Done! (Some Sobering News Here.)