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June 8 - July 6, 2021
Peale’s ideas about inferiority complexes
And those are???????
Freddy kept trying and failing to do the right thing; Donald began to realize that there was nothing he could do wrong, so he stopped trying to do anything “right.”
Example? Evidence?
Every one of Donald’s transgressions
Example?
Donald’s problem was that the combative, rigid persona he developed in order to shield him from the terror of his early abandonment, along with his having been made to witness his father’s abuse of Freddy, cut him off from real human connection.
It was simpler for Rob and Maryanne to toe the party line in the hope that they wouldn’t get treated any worse, which seems to be the same calculation Republicans in Congress make every day now.
Maybe true, but what kind of statement is this?!
He secretly approached two of my grandfather’s longest-serving employees, Irwin Durben, his lawyer, and Jack Mitnick, his accountant, and enlisted them to draft a codicil to my grandfather’s will that would put Donald in complete control of Fred’s estate, including the empire and all its holdings, after he died. Maryanne, Elizabeth, and Robert would effectively be at Donald’s financial mercy, dependent on his approval for the smallest transaction.
If your only currency is money, that’s the only lens through which you determine worth; somebody who has accomplished in that context as little as my father was worth nothing—even if he happened to be your son. Further, if my father died penniless, his children weren’t entitled to anything.
She mentioned that Ivana had missed Ivanka’s wedding shower but said, sotto voce, that she couldn’t discuss why.
When I finally realized that my grandfather didn’t care what I accomplished or contributed and that my own unrealistic expectations were paralyzing me, I still felt that only a grand gesture would set it right. It wasn’t enough for me to volunteer at an organization helping Syrian refugees; I had to take Donald down.
While my grandfather was alive, Donald alone had received the equivalent of $413 million, much of it through questionable means:
much as their father did, and it seemed the main purpose of All County was to siphon money from Trump Management through large gifts disguised as “legitimate business transactions,” according to the article. The ruse was so effective that, when Fred died in 1999, he had only $1.9 million in cash and no assets larger than a $10.3 million IOU from Donald.
In that way, Fred purchased the ability to bask in Donald’s reflected glory, satisfied with the knowledge that none of it would have been possible without his expertise and largesse.
Selling the estate in bulk was a strategic disaster.
The first are essentially controlled environments in which Donald’s material needs have always been taken care of; the second, a series of sinecures in which the work was done by others and Donald never needed to acquire expertise in order to attain or retain power (which partly explains his disdain for the expertise of others).
Donald was to my grandfather what the border wall has been for Donald: a vanity project funded at the expense of more worthy pursuits.
Instead, he used Donald, despite his failures and poor judgment, as the public face of his own thwarted ambition.
Fred kept propping up Donald’s false sense of accomplishment until the only asset Donald had was the ease with which he could be duped by more powerful men.
Fred surrounded Donald with people who knew what they were doing while giving him the credit; who propped him up and lied for him; who knew how the family business worked.
Nobody has failed upward as consistently and spectacularly as the ostensible leader of the shrinking free world.
This is 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.
If you’re someone who cares about his approval, you’ll say anything to retain it.
Donald’s aberrant behavior has been consistently normalized by others.
The idea that his tactics were legitimate calculations instead of unethical cons was yet another aspect of the myth that he and my grandfather had been constructing for decades.
he’s rarely been subjected to close scrutiny,
Donald is completely unprepared to solve his own problems or adequately cover his tracks.
The people with access to him are weaker than Donald is, more craven, but just as desperate. Their futures are directly dependent on his success and favor.
Donald’s checkered personal history and his unique personality flaws make him extremely vulnerable to manipulation by smarter, more powerful men.
One of the few pleasures my grandfather had, aside from making money, was humiliating others.
he’s never been legitimate at all.
The role that fear played in his childhood and the role it plays now can’t be overstated.
It’s easy to sound coherent and somewhat knowledgeable when you control the narrative and are never pressed to elaborate on your premise or demonstrate that you actually understand the underlying facts.
Since the election, he’s figured out how to avoid such questions completely; White House press briefings and formal news conferences have been replaced with “chopper talk” during which he can pretend he can’t hear any unwelcome questions over the noise of the helicopter blades. In 2020, his pandemic “press briefings” quickly devolved into mini–campaign rallies filled with self-congratulation, demagoguery, and ring kissing.
The through line from Donald’s early, destructive behavior that Fred actively encouraged to the media’s unwillingness to challenge him and the Republican Party’s willingness to turn a blind eye to the daily corruption he has committed since January 20, 2017, have led to the impending collapse of this once great nation’s economy, democracy, and health.
Fred came to appreciate Donald’s obstinacy because it signaled the kind of toughness he sought in his sons.
The deafening silence in response to such a blatant display of sociopathic disregard for human life or the consequences for one’s actions, on the other hand, fills me with despair and reminds me that Donald isn’t really the problem after all.
Donald can no more advocate for the sick and dying than he could put himself between his father and Freddy.
Perhaps most crucially, for Donald there is no value in empathy, no tangible upside to caring for other people.
In Donald’s mind, even acknowledging an inevitable threat would indicate weakness. Taking responsibility would open him up to blame. Being a hero—being good—is impossible for him.
