Too Much and Never Enough

Over the final two chapters and Epilogue, Trump wraps up her narrative by moving ahead to 2009, when she finally spoke to her aunts and uncles again, and to 2017, shortly after Donald was inaugurated as president. In Chapter 13, she explains how she initially refused to help a reporter seeking financial documents concerning her grandfather, but changed her mind after more closely examining some of the actions that her uncle was taking as president. The documents that Trump provided were critical to the 2018 New York Times article that revealed “the long litany of potentially fraudulent and criminal activities [her] grandfather, aunts, and uncles engaged in” (190). In the latter half of the chapter, Trump goes on to describe those potentially fraudulent and criminal activities in detail and why they matter. When the true value of Fred Trump Sr.’s empire became clear from the investigation and reporting, the amount of money was staggering. Trump writes that the real amount made their fight over the will “seem pathologically petty and their treatment of my nephew vis-à-vis our medical insurance even more cruel” (194). In this way, the author demonstrates the multigenerational impacts of the family dynamics established by her grandparents.

Having completed her narrative, the final chapter of Trump’s book deviates from the previous ones in both substance and intent. She writes in a more direct fashion as she discusses her uncle’s psychological temperament and specific actions that he did or did not take as president, thus reiterating his possession of the Personality Traits of Narcissism and Sociopathy. Trump does this by rehashing much of Donald’s history as the preferred son of Fred Trump Sr. and connecting that assessment to his presidency. She begins Chapter 14 explaining the ways in which Donald was “protected from his failures” and came to “believe himself a success” (195). Because of this, “Donald today is much as he was at three years old: incapable of growing, learning, or evolving, unable to regulate his emotions, moderate his responses, or take in and synthesize information” (197). Trump argues that the main crises of Donald’s presidency were handled disastrously because the national media initially treated his pathologies “as if they were entertaining idiosyncrasies” when he ran for president (200). The result of that was that Congress, the Supreme Court, and his advisors—the institutions and entities that should have held him to account—became invested in protecting his ego, thus protecting themselves from being the targets of vindictiveness.

In her final chapters, Trump reiterates that The Influence of Upbringing on Adult Behavior has ramifications outside of the immediate family unit: In the case of Donald Trump, his upbringing affected the entire United States. Much of the discussion in Chapter 14 focuses on Donald’s upbringing and how his behavior as president was largely a direct byproduct of how Fred Sr. helped to build his image by funding his early business ventures and bailing him out financially, thus creating an adult who displays traits of narcissism and sociopathy while holding great responsibility. Trump argues that Donald’s insecurities and need for affirmation go “far beyond garden-variety narcissism; Donald is not simply weak, his ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment because he knows deep down that he is nothing of what he claims to be” (198). In highlighting these traits, the author both implicates Donald’s—and her own—family of origin in creating the man who would serve as president, and she points out the ways in which the people who have the power to hold him to account for his “worst instincts” instead enable him.