I can't say there was a last straw because there have been so many straws, but certainly the horrors at the border, separating children from their parents, the torture, the kidnapping and the incarceration of them in cages was unthinkable, unbearable. When an opportunity presented itself to me to do something, I needed to take a leap.
Mary L. Trump
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.
The simple fact is that Donald is fundamentally incapable of acknowledging the suffering of others. Telling the stories of those we've lost would bore him. Acknowledging the victims of COVID-19 would be to associate himself with their weakness, a trait his father taught him to despise.
Donald's monstrosity is the manifestation of the very weakness within him that he's been running from his entire life. For him, there has never been any option but to be positive, to project strength, no matter how illusory, because doing anything else carries a death sentence; my father's short life is evidence of that.
Donald began to realize that there was nothing he could do wrong, so he stopped trying to do anything 'right.' He became bolder and more aggressive because he was rarely challenged or held to account by the only person in the world who mattered - his father.
Donald Trump may have a long undiagnosed learning disability that for decades has interfered with his ability to process information.
This is far beyond garden-variety narcissism; Donald is not simply weak, his ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment because he knows deep down that he is nothing of what he claims to be.
And how can you be happy if you don't laugh or appreciate humor?
In my family, it was kind of an unwritten rule that certain behaviors that would have been crossing a line for other people were OK if you were a particular Trump.
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.
At home - where my grandmother certainly had to deal with Donald more than my grandfather did because he was at work all the time - he was incredibly disrespectful to her. He didn't listen to her. He was a slob. He tormented - in one way or another, I think he tormented all of his siblings.
Besides being driven around Manhattan by a chauffeur whose salary his father's company paid, in a Cadillac his father's company leased to 'scope out properties,' Donald's job description seems to have included lying about his 'accomplishments' and allegedly refusing to rent apartments to Black people.
Certainly, in the case of my dad, who was the oldest son, heir apparent and namesake, there was harsh discipline and humiliation which Donald, seven and a half years younger, was able to witness and learn very specific lessons from: don't be like Freddy, don't be kind, don't be generous, don't have 'frivolous' interests.
Donald saw his younger brother Robert as weaker and therefore enjoyed tormenting him. He repeatedly hid Robert's favorite toys, pretending he had no idea where they were.
He never has made a living. He went from my grandparents' house to the very regimented military school, back to the house, to my grandfather's company, to the Trump Organization, which I view as a sinecure for him. And then 'The Apprentice,' whatever that was, and the White House.
Media failed to notice that not one member of Donald's family, apart from his children, his son-in-law and his current wife said a word of support of him during the entire campaign.
For Donald, lying was primarily a mode of self-aggrandizement meant to convince other people he was better than he actually was.
That's what sociopaths do: they co-opt others and use them toward their own ends - ruthlessly and efficiently, with no tolerance for dissent or resistance.
I blame my grandfather 100 percent for his oldest son's death. I don't think there's any ambiguity there.
Donald has been institutionalized for most of his adult life, so there is no way to know how he would thrive, or even survive, on his own in the real world.
Donald's need for affirmation is so great that he doesn't seem to notice that the largest group of his supporters are people he wouldn't condescend to be seen with outside of a rally.
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.
For the first forty years of his real estate career, my grandfather never acquired debt. In the 1970s and '80s, however, all of that changed as Donald's ambition grew larger and his missteps became more frequent.
A lot of people who end up being horrible criminals when they are adults had very abusive childhoods. You can have sympathy for that child. It does not at all, under any circumstances, diminish their responsibility for what they do.
In Donald's mind, even acknowledging an inevitable threat would indicate weakness. Taking responsibility would open him up to blame. Being a hero - being good - is impossible for him.
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 neurophysical tests that he'll never sit for.
Donald learned from a very young age that in order to survive in my family, he needed to be what my grandfather referred to as a killer, you know, somebody who had no weaknesses - in other words, kindness, generosity, sensitivity. So I think, over time, those qualities were systematically drilled out of Donald by his dad.
Donald was to my grandfather what the border wall has been for Donald: a vanity project funded at the expense of more worthy pursuits.
You know, I think it was very important that my grandmother be perceived a very particular way in terms of being charitable or generous. I don't think Donald cares about those two things necessarily. He has his own version of what he wants the world to see.
The divisive environment my grandfather created in the family is the water that Donald has always swum in, and that division continues to benefit him at the expense of everyone else.
While thousands of Americans die alone, Donald touts stock market gains. As my father lay dying alone, Donald went to the movies. If he can in any way profit from your death, he'll facilitate it, and then he'll ignore the fact that you died.
I think the simplest way to put it is to say that Donald continues to need to prove to his father that he's the tough guy, the killer, the best, you know, that he's winning all the time, and above all, that he's not weak. And the ways to be weak in my family were to be kind, to admit mistakes, and to apologize.
I had to take down Donald Trump.
The worst thing my grandfather did, starting from very early on, was just not accept my father for who he is. As soon as he realized that my dad wasn't the 'right kind of person' - he wasn't 'a killer', he wasn't 'tough' - he dismissed him out of hand and quickly found a replacement in Donald.
My grandfather didn't have any patience for little kids or their needs.
I saw firsthand what focusing on the wrong things, elevating the wrong people can do - the collateral damage that can be created by allowing somebody to live their lives without accountability.
It's impossible to know who Donald might have been under different circumstances and with different parents.
All the kids - well, I don't know about the girls in the family, but all the boys - worked in my grandfather's office in the summers and maybe on weekends once in a while, so they saw how he operated. They saw how he treated people. They saw the kinds of people he rubbed elbows with.
Casual dehumanization of people was commonplace at the Trump dinner table.
The name Joe Shapiro is not uncommon in New York City.
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.
You know, my dad was a second lieutenant in the Air National Guard Reserve, and my grandfather wasn't particularly happy about the time it took away from the family business.
From a fairly young age, Donald had a really hard time reading social cues. You know, the rules in the house, my grandparents' house were very different from the rules in school. So, he had a difficult time adjusting to that.
My grandfather couldn't stand either one of my parents.
You know, when my grandfather died, we were told that his estate was worth about $30 million. And it turns out it was closer to a billion. So that's hardly a rounding error.
I, along with everybody else, had bought into the myth of Donald being a self-made man and being a brilliant developer. I had no idea that none of that was true because everybody acted like it was true.
The traits my grandfather came to value in Donald were the traits that were a result of my grandfather's maltreatment of Donald - the bullying, the tendency not to care about other people's feelings, the willingness to cheat, lie to get what he wanted. And eventually, my grandfather started to see a kindred spirit.
My grandfather, I don't think was really, had real positive feelings towards anybody except perhaps Donald.
Growing up, I never known anybody in my family actually to interact with a person of color.
Donald learned that you can never admit you're wrong. That was considered a weakness... it's a kind of toxic positivity, there was no admitting pain, there was no admitting weakness.
