Too Much and Never Enough, Chapter 1

Dr. Mary L. Trump divides her book into sections, with several chapters in each. Note: for the sake of clarity, for the rest of this review I will refer to the author as Dr. Trump and to her uncle as Donald or the president. Let's dig in!

Part One: "The Cruelty Is The Point"

Of course, one of the leading perceptions of the Trump Administration is the cruel and inhumane policies that it pursues, from the petty, bizarre, and self-defeating callousness towards veterans and intelligence officials (as noted in John Bolton's book and countless journalists), to tone-deaf social policies (e.g., everything Betsy DeVos puts forward on education, confederate paraphernalia, healthcare, etc.), to authoritarian brutality as seen on the southern border and in dealing with protestors. In this section, Dr. Mary Trump claims that her uncle's character traits in this regard are in part due to the circumstances of his formative years.

Chapter 1: "The House"

Quick Hits: in the first chapter, the audience is introduced to Donald's parents, Fred and Mary (and the children, Maryanne, Freddy, Elizabeth, Donald, and Robert). The author details the characteristics that both made parents problematic individually, and downright disastrous together in raising a family.

Dr. Trump spends a fair portion retelling the story of both of her grandparents' early lives and their meeting and marriage; however, this is background for a look into their characteristics as parents and the effect they had on their children.

Mary Trump: the author's namesake; she is presented as often absent in her children's lives (particularly the boys), due mostly to several surgeries and convalescence. She is viewed as distant (physically and emotionally) in the lives of children, compounding the fact that this is also true of their father, to an even greater degree:

Having a sociopath as a parent, especially if there is not one else around to mitigate the effects, all but guarantees severe disruption in how children understand themselves, regulate their emotions, and engage with the world. My grandmother was ill equipped to deal with the problems caused in her marriage by Fred' callousness, indifference, and controlling behaviors. (Trump 32)

Fred Trump: I have already cited Trump's characterization of her grandfather as a sociopath; a strong statement, which she supports in her discussion of him throughout the chapter (and, naturally, in the ones to follow). She describes him as a man who cared only for his own success as a businessman, spending most of his time at work, away from the family. He is painted as a cold man towards his offspring, with noticeable consequences in a time when they needed an empathetic parent the most. Trump discusses Fred's dealings and connections with powerful officials to further his business ventures and his use of federal funding to finance his projects rather than his own money. She also goes into how he was influenced by the troubling philosophies of Norman Vincent Peale:

Peale's proto-prosperity gospel actually complemented the scarcity mentality Fred continued to cling to. For him, it was not "the more you have, the more you can give." It was "the more you have, the more you have." Financial worth was the same as self-worth, monetary value was human value. The more Fred Trump had, the better he was. If he gave something to someone else, that person would be worth more and he less. He would pass that attitude on to Donald in spades. (47)

Dr. Trump is troubled by her grandfather's zero-sum game philosophy of life, especially as that focus was part of his parenting style (such that it was). He couldn't be bothered to take interest in his children, since that would take time away from his business. This combination of the effect of the two parents is what the author basis her title on; she explains that the combination of "too much" and "not enough" is one circumstance of child abuse - in this case, Donald receiving "not enough" in terms of connection and love from his parents, and "too much" in terms of seeing how harshly his father treated his older brother. All of this would lead to the formation of her uncle's beliefs and behaviors (e.g., bullying, grievance, dishonesty, disrespect, aggressiveness, etc.):

Unfortunately for Donald and everybody else on this planet, those behaviors became hardened into personality traits because once Fred started paying attention to his loud and difficult second son, he came to value them. Put another way, Fred Trump came to validate, encourage, and champion the things about Donald that rendered him essentially unlovable and that were in part the direct result of Fred's abuse. (35)

Throughout the chapter, Dr. Trump is able to weave together an engaging narrative, combining her expertise as a psychologist with an interesting look into history (both of her own family and the country's, to an extent) and a slight dabble into the realm of politics and philosophy.