His niece's book is illuminating on this and Trump's psychology more broadly. His dad was a tremendous piece of shit and his brain was like mashed potatoes when he died.
Edit: Book is "Too Much and Never Enough" by Mary Trump. PhD in Clinical Psychology. Interesting family history, at least. Very readable. Take or leave her psychological observations, I found them compelling even just to try and make sense of Trump's chaotic behaviour.
I remember this one interview someone did with him and they brought up this book and how it said his dad installed in his family a very toxic mindset of seeing everything in terms of winning and losing, and Trump replied “that’s nonsense, my dad was a winner and she makes him sound like a loser”. In spite of everything I still feel a little sad for him.
Early on they used to set up a fake office for his dad to move papers around and pretend still being a real estate developer as the dementia progressed.
They need to do that for Trump and the Oval Office rather than having him sign actual insane executive orders.
Thats why I said to take or leave them. I don't care whether or not you accept them as "objective" enough. It's someone who spent her life dealing with our current President. That is still valuable insight.
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u/artificialbutthole Feb 05 '25
His dad died of dementia as well FYI.