Mary L. Trump, The Advocate Interview 7/2020

[Ike Bana]

I missed this article when it was first published last summer. It's a great interview with the person with a clinical perspective who knows the former occupant better than anybody on earth.

Mary L. Trump on Growing Up Gay in an 'Anti-Everything' Family

He’s not [an] ally of the gay community, or really any community for that matter. Donald doesn’t have any concern or beliefs beyond his own self-interest. His enablers tell him to enact a certain policy, and he’ll do it. He doesn’t care.

Yep, that's the orange rat bastard. He has no concerns or beliefs beyond his own self interest.

There is a significant minority of people in this country who are comfortable voting against their own self-interest, whether it’s their sexuality, race, or economic status. It’s really astonishing.

And there's your typical Trump supporter, and Republican voter who isn't a 1%'er who figures their tax bill will go down with a Republican in the Oval Office. The rest of the non-wealthy American Republicans know, on some level that nothing Trump ever does is done unless he sees it as personally beneficial, and primarily personally financially beneficial, to him. It doesn't matter to him how it effects anybody else, unless it might cost him votes, which is again, all about himself. And these voters know that with most Republican politicans they are voting against their own self-interest as well. But they're anti-choice, and/or anti-embryonic stem-cell research, and/or anti-women's reproductive rights, and/or anti-marriage equality, and/or anti-reasonable immigration policies, and/or anti-science, and/or pro democratized gun carnage...so they vote against their own self-interest because of their dumbass religious and ideological beliefs.

Great article, great interview, she's great.

And this is the sociopathic grifter that the GOP has put their lot in with going forward.

[donquixote99]

They vote on identity, with the tribe. Issue stuff is rationalization at most.

[barbara]

Ike, did you happen to read the book Mary Trump wrote? She provided a lot of insight to the whole family and how Donald fit into things. Also, she predicted that Trump will not run again in 2024. According to her, she doesn't think he would put himself in a position that he might lose again.

[Pio1980]

I need to get back into the book.
As a pre-never-Trump person that saw his selfish empty bluster as a toxic sham in his public persona, I think of myself as one of the folks that early recognised Hitler for the populist demagog con-man and never changed.

[Mark B]

Mary L. Trump has done a lot of good for the country by exposing Donald Trump for what he is.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by barbara

Ike, did you happen to read the book Mary Trump wrote? She provided a lot of insight to the whole family and how Donald fit into things. Also, she predicted that Trump will not run again in 2024. According to her, she doesn't think he would put himself in a position that he might lose again.

I have read it. And also watched a number of interviews with her on various media. I'm not so sure he won't run again though...it's the only way he can continue to experience what may be the most important thing in his life...the adulation he gets at rallies. If he believes the GOP can suppress enough of the vote that he will win or he really believes that the election was stolen...which makes him more deranged than I thought, he might very well run.

But back to Mary L. Trump. She's so clinically solid and dependable. We often get into the mental health biz because of our childhood experiences and Mary L. had the misfortune but also the benefit of growing up in one of the most twisted, sick, and wrong family systems in the history of the Republic.

I've been watching Trump since the early nineties when I heard about his attempts to run resident Vera Coking out of her Atlantic City home, which was on land he wanted for a limousine parking lot for his new casino there. So thirty years of observation. I've seen a lot of narcissism in my career, but Trump is the only person I've ever seen who fulfills all nine DSMIV criteria for narcissistic personality disorder. And I finally had my clinical opinion confirmed by Professor Mary L. Trump in one of her interviews on MSNBC. It was gratifying.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by Pio1980

I need to get back into the book.
As a pre-never-Trump person that saw his selfish empty bluster as a toxic sham in his public persona, I think of myself as one of the folks that early recognised Hitler for the populist demagog con-man and never changed.

Reading this suggests another book you might find interesting...Madeleine Albright's "Fascism: A Warning." Very much focused on Trump and how his path to the presidency comes straight out of the Mussolini playbook.