THE GREAT I-AM: There he went again!

FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 2025

The stumblebums chose to move on: Should anyone believe the claims made by Mary L. Trump? 

We refer to Mary L. Trump, Ph.D., a trained clinical psychologist and the niece of President Trump. In the summer of 2020, she published a major best seller, Too Much and Never Enough, in which she offered a detailed family history of the Trumps—and a set of diagnostic assessments of her very important uncle.

Full disclosure! Here's the full title of Mary Trump's book:

Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man

Plainly, that's a challenging title. Should people believe the various things its author said? 

Let's start with the family history:

As we noted yesterday, Mary Trump's account of the family history takes us back into the 1940s (and beyond)—to a time when the current American president was just two years old. To a time well before she herself was on the scene of the family drama. 

What was the source of her presentations? At the start of the book, in an Author's Note, she addresses that question:

Author’s Note

Much of this book comes from my own memory. For events during which I was not present, I relied on conversations and interviews, many of which are recorded, with members of my family, family friends, neighbors, and associates. I’ve reconstructed some dialogue according to what I personally remember and what others have told me. Where dialogue appears, my intention was to re-create the essence of conversations rather than provide verbatim quotes. I have also relied on legal documents, bank statements, tax returns, private journals, family documents, correspondence, emails, texts, photographs, and other records.

On which family members might she have relied for her account of the president's earliest years? Early in the prologue of the book, she suggests one obvious answer

Prologue

[...]

When Donald announced his run for the presidency on June 16, 2015, I didn’t take it seriously. I didn’t think Donald took it seriously. He simply wanted the free publicity for his brand. He’d done that sort of thing before. When his poll numbers started to rise and he may have received tacit assurances from Russian president Vladimir Putin that Russia would do everything it could to swing the election in his favor, the appeal of winning grew.

“He’s a clown,” my aunt Maryanne said during one of our regular lunches at the time. “This will never happen.”

We talked about how his reputation as a faded reality star and failed businessman would doom his run. “Does anybody even believe the bullshit that he’s a self-made man? What has he even accomplished on his own?” I asked.

“Well,” Maryanne said, as dry as the Sahara, “he has had five bankruptcies.”

Maryanne Trump was 12 years old when her brother was only two. Mary Trump says she was having regular lunches with her somewhat sardonic aunt—with the president's older sister—as of 2015.

We know of no reason to doubt that! That said, those who want to disbelieve—like those who may want to shirk their journalistic duty—can always find ways to do so.

In part, we're inclined to trust Mary Trump's text because she's so empathetic to the child whose mother was essentially taken away when he was two years old. 

For Mary Trump's account of the early history, see yesterday' report. As an author, Mary Trump displays the rare ability to keep two dueling thoughts in her head:

She's able to pity the child, even as she describes the adult—her adult uncle—as "the world's most dangerous man."

Was he "the world's most dangerous man?" Is that a fair assessment today? That, of course, is a matter of judgment. But we admire Mary Trump's ability to pity the child whose father was (in her assessment) a sociopath, whose mother suffered a massive medical disability when he was still just two.

That brings us to the question of Mary Trump's medical assessments.  

We're using the term "medical" here because it's a more pleasant word. It's a more pleasant word than "psychiatric." It's even more pleasant than "psychological"—but what about the various assessments Mary Trump makes is realm?

Borrowing from President Nixon, let us say this about that:

As everyone knows, it violates the rules of high-end American journalism to discuss such medical assessments. Rather, it violates the rules of the guild to discuss issues of possible mental illness or mental health in the case of powerful public figures.

With respect to the hoi-polloi, our journalists are free to plow ahead. Just last week, a lengthy report in the Washington Post was described this way on the website's front page, in a link to the actual article:

Deep Reads
NYC is removing mentally ill people from the subway. She’s a nurse who makes the call.
Amid calls to make the transit system safer, Lisa Singh’s mission is to treat people with severe mental illness whom many riders have come to fear.

That's how the report was thumbnailed on the website's front page. 

After clicking the link, a reader encountered this lengthy, perfectly intelligent report—a "Deep Read" in which the term "mental illness" appears seven separate times.

It isn't that our high-end journalists don't believe in mental illness. Instead, they don't believe that this  part of human life should ever be discussed with respect to major public figures.

In conventional reckoning, this well-known prohibition dates at least to 1973, to the adoption of the so-called "Goldwater rule." Full disclosure! As the leading authority on the topic notes, that so-called rule applies, in the literal sense, to the behavior of psychiatrists, not to the practices of American journalists:

Goldwater rule

The Goldwater rule is Section 7 in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Principles of Medical Ethics, which states that psychiatrists have a responsibility to participate in activities contributing to the improvement of the community and the betterment of public health, but when asked to comment on public figures, they shall refrain from diagnosing, which requires a personal examination and consent. It is named after former U.S. Senator and 1964 Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater.

As of 1973, psychiatrists were formally told that they must "refrain from diagnosing" public figures. Along the way, American news orgs largely adapted a similar informal rule of the road. (It was frequently honored in the breach during Campaign 2000.)

Should journalists refrain from this kind of medical talk with respect to public figures? In our view, that's an extremely good rule of thumb—until such time as it isn't.

Should the behavior of President Trump be subjected to such talk today? That, of course, is a matter of judgment. At the end of her Prologue, Mary L. Trump, Ph.D., explained her thinking on the subject:

Prologue

[...]

No one knows how Donald came to be who he is better than his own family. Unfortunately, almost all of them remain silent out of loyalty or fear. I’m not hindered by either of those. In addition to the firsthand accounts I can give as my father’s daughter and my uncle’s only niece, I have the perspective of a trained clinical psychologist. Too Much and Never Enough is the story of the most visible and powerful family in the world. And I am the only Trump who is willing to tell it.

I hope this book will end the practice of referring to Donald’s “strategies” or “agendas,” as if he operates according to any organizing principles. He doesn’t. Donald’s ego has been and is a fragile and inadequate barrier between him and the real world, which, thanks to his father’s money and power, he never had to negotiate by himself. Donald has always needed to perpetuate the fiction my grandfather started that he is strong, smart, and otherwise extraordinary, because facing the truth—that he is none of those things—is too terrifying for him to contemplate.

Donald, following the lead of my grandfather and with the complicity, silence, and inaction of his siblings, destroyed my father. I can’t let him destroy my country.

Did her uncle really destroy her father? That's part of the complex family history told in this well-written book.

That said, Mary Trump plainly qualifies as an interested party in the sprawling story she tells. That said, she's also "a trained clinical psychologist"—and after helping us pity the child, she said we should fear the adult. 

It's as we noted (again) yesterday. In the case of her powerful uncle, she had already offered this assessment of the medical lay of the land:

Prologue

[...]

None of the Trump siblings emerged unscathed from my grandfather’s sociopathy and my grandmother’s illnesses, both physical and psychological, but my uncle Donald and my father, Freddy, suffered more than the rest. In order to get a complete picture of Donald, his psychopathologies, and the meaning of his dysfunctional behavior, we need a thorough family history.

In the last three years, I’ve watched as countless pundits, armchair psychologists, and journalists have kept missing the mark, using phrases such as “malignant narcissism” and “narcissistic personality disorder” in an attempt to make sense of Donald’s often bizarre and self-defeating behavior. I have no problem calling Donald a narcissist—he meets all nine criteria as outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)—but the label gets us only so far.

[...]

Does Donald have other symptoms we aren’t aware of? Are there other disorders that might have as much or more explanatory power? Maybe. A case could be made that he also meets the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, which in its most severe form is generally considered sociopathy but can also refer to chronic criminality, arrogance, and disregard for the rights of others...

The fact is, Donald’s pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neuropsychological tests that he’ll never sit for.

That's the trained psychologist talking. As we've noted again and again, the assessments she offers in that passage (and elsewhere) may or may not be "right."

In the summer of 2020, Too Much and Never Enough became a massive best-seller. Our journalists reacted in a predictable way—they almost wholly ignored Mary Trump's clinical assessments, continuing to trod the path blazed by the Goldwater rule.

Mary Trump made many TV appearances, but she was treated as a standard political pundit. For better or worse, her clinical assessments were almost completely disappeared.

For better or worse, our journalists chose that path. But here's something else which they have continued to do:

As of last Friday night, there he went again! Her uncle—he's now 78—issued his latest peculiar claim, supported by a highly suspicious "photograph."  Almost surely, the president's highlighted claim about Kilmar Abrego Garcia was—no major surprise—silly and bogus and false:

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such “a fine and innocent person.” They said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles, and two Highly Respected Courts found that he was a member of MS-13, beat up his wife, etc. I was elected to take bad people out of the United States, among other things. I must be allowed to do my job. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

In the course of the past week, that highlighted claim has been bruited all over Red America. Over here, in Blue America, our journalists have told us this:

Nothing to look at! Just move along!

It seems to have been the latest of his endless array of bogus claims, many of which seem to hail from the land of the crazy. 

It was a truly remarkable claim. Our Blue press slumbered and snored.

In the wake of these endless claims, a certain question might seem to arise. Is something "wrong" with Donald J. Trump? Also, is something "wrong" with the apparent nutcase he put in charge of DOGE?

Completing the rule of three, is something wrong with the clown car conduct seen all day, and then all night, on the "cable news" programs of the Fox News Channel? We could extend our question further, but we'll stop here at the count of three.

Is something wrong with those major public figures? Over here, in their comfort zone, the timorous scribes of Blue America have generally taken a pass on that blindingly obvious question. They act like Fox doesn't even exist, and they proceed from there. 

With respect to President Trump, they've chosen to stay away from the medical talk. Given the intellectual immaturity of the American public discourse, a sensible person can even imagine that this has been a good choice.

They've stayed away from the medical talk—but they've also chosen to normalize this president's bizarre behaviors. As of last weekend, this permissive behavior had reached the point where the giants of Blue America's press corps all agreed to walk away from his latest extremely weird statement.

His claim was spread all over Red America, In Blue America, the guardians walked off their posts.

The Great I-Am had gone there again! Nothing to look at, these stumblebums said, at which point they simply moved on.

Pity the child, his niece had said. But don't give a pass to the adult!

We'd recommend pity for the adult too—for the great loss of human potential chronicled in the story the niece has told.  (In her telling, it's a story of what can occur when a child is born to "a high-functioning sociopath.")

We'd recommend pity for the loss of human potential That said, the very powerful adult's ridiculous conduct must be reported, again and again and again and again, as it endlessly appears and re-appears on the American scene.

This conduct should be reported on the nation's front pages. The endless array of peculiar and blindingly bogus statements should be the subject of a recurrent front-page news hook.

Pity the child, his niece had said. But try to avoid taking a dive for the world's most dangerous man! 

As of last Friday night, The Great I-Am had done it again. Nothing to look at, the Voices said, at which point the Voices moved on.