Wondering what Mary Trump *didn't* put in her book.

[Mike 03]

2. I'm not an expert on the Trumps but I've read a little bit about it.

Most of the psychiatric profiles I've read agree with the first part, that Fred Sr. tried to groom Fred Jr but that Fred Jr had his own aspirations separate and apart from what his father planned for him, and that he was squeezed out as Fred Sr set his sights on Donald, who was willing and didn't want to be subjected to the treatment his older brother received from their father. It's a very tough thing to go against your father and live with constant rejection from the dominant male influence in your life, which undoubtedly contributed to his alcoholism.

You might be getting a little bit ahead of yourself by accusing Mary Trump of omitting this, since your theory is by your own admission a hypothesis, and it's one that other books by psychiatrists on this subject (The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, Dangerous Charisma and likely the longer biographies) don't really back up. That's kind of a tough charge to make when the evidence so far is that she's brutally honest and experiencing great discomfort and assuming great personal risk by coming forward. Of course new facts could come out that could change that.

I'll be reading her book this weekend and maybe there will be additional clues.

But what you are saying is interesting conjecture.

That family dynamic was set in stone by Fred Sr. Donald Trump didn't actually have to do anything to Fred Jr. except to fall in line with his father for Fred Jr. to experience the interpersonal catastrophe that followed once he distanced himself from his father. One brother resisted the father; the other brother did not.