All in the Family Dynamics

This New York Times review of Mary Trump’s tell-all book is absolutely spot on:

“It’s the kind of detail — memorably specific, fundamentally human and decidedly weird — that gives this book an undeniable power, even if its narrative is bookended by Mary’s strenuous efforts to put her training as a clinical psychologist to use. She has no problem calling Donald Trump a narcissist, and she also identifies additional signs of antisocial personality disorder (the vaingloriousness), dependent personality disorder (the neediness) and a substance-induced sleep disorder (the dozen daily Diet Cokes). When she writes in her prologue that ‘Donald has been institutionalized for most of his adult life,’ she isn’t referring to anything so salubrious as mental health treatment. ‘Institutionalization’ here refers to the gilded cosseting provided by the family name and fortune that ensured Donald would never have to survive by his own wits in the real world.”

“But will the real world survive Donald Trump? Mary says that American democracy will not if he gets a second term. The story she describes in Too Much and Never Enough is presented as a cautionary tale. Donald, she says, can’t help recreating a familial psychodrama that destroyed everyone it touched. She recalls waking up at 5 a.m. the morning after the 2016 election: ‘It felt as though 62,979,636 voters had chosen to turn this country into a macro version of my malignantly dysfunctional family.'”