The morning after Mary Trump's uncle Donald Trump became president of the United States. She wrote down these words: “Demeaned, diminished, debased.”
Trump says division and even hatred is rooted in America's history. Her new book is called The Reckoning: our Nation's Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal.
Her uncle’s presidency is a “permanent stain” on the US, she told Jesse Mulligan.
Photo: supplied
“The first few months were bordering on surreal, because it was so difficult to conceive that 62 million people had made such a horrible mistake.”
Trump pulls no punches about her uncle in the book.
‘When your motive is not simply winning at all costs, but grievance and revenge, you're more dangerous than a straight up sociopath. Donald is much worse than that. He's someone with a gaping wound, where his soul should be.’ Is one direct quote.
She can say these things because she is a part and yet not a part of the family, she says.
“There wouldn't be any real consequences to my telling the truth, because I haven't been part of the family in a really long time.
“So, I felt that helping people understand what was going on and what we'd done was more important than clinging to some sense of loyalty that actually didn't exist.”
Using the word ‘trauma’ in the title is appropriate, says Trump, who is a clinical psychologist.
“We have been in this extended state of division and chaos, since Donald got into the White House. The first two-and-a-half years of his administration didn't affect everybody, because obviously a lot of people supported him and liked what he did.
“But most of us, at least 55-60 percent of us, really felt the cruelty and really felt trapped by the sense that he was getting away with so much.”
And then Covid-19 came along and everyone was affected, she says.
“We have been isolated, we've been afraid, just like everybody else in the rest of the world. However, we had somebody ostensibly leading the country who decided the best thing to do instead of bringing us together would be to divide us even farther.
“And on top of that, somebody who decided that his best hopes for extending his political career would be to choose the health of the economy over saving human lives. So that's pretty traumatic.”
She talks about her uncle Donald as a symptom, so what is the disease?
“The disease, as far as I can tell, and this is sort of the starting point for my book, is that since this country's inception, we have never held powerful white men accountable, no matter how egregious their crimes.
“Starting with Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederacy, was a traitor to this country, was responsible for the deaths of over 750,000 people and never got punished for it.
“In fact, President Gerald Ford pardoned Robert E. Lee in the early ‘70s, which is quite something.”
White supremacy is a deep-rooted strain in American politics, she says.
“It has been a strain in this country since the Constitution was written, and not only is it something that we've never atoned for, it's something that we've not acknowledged. So, it continues to play a very large role in American society and in American politics.
“I think you could argue the case that the Republican Party, which is one of our two major political parties, has white supremacy as one of its platforms.”
Her uncle has a gift, a malign one, for exploiting weaknesses in people and systems, she says.
“I think this is instinctual on his part, I don't think it has anything to do with intelligence. But he's really quite good at exploiting weaknesses of other people and weaknesses in the system. And I think what he's revealed more than anything else, is that our system is quite fragile.”
Trump continues to be enabled by the Republican Party, she says.
“They've been doing that since they realised he was going to win the Republican nomination in 2016. And they have had so many opportunities to shut him down, to cut him off.
“And especially after he lost the 2020 election, so decisively to render him irrelevant and every time they refuse.
“They stick with him. The enable him, they keep him legitimate in the minds of other Republicans, and worse, they empower him by granting him the ability to endorse people and either keep people in power or knock them out.”
And the Republicans have created a monster, she says.
“Donald gave a rally over the weekend in Alabama, which is a state by the way with no intensive care unit beds left because the Covid outbreak there is so severe.
“And when Donald suggested that people get the vaccine, he got booed. So once again Republicans have played the role of Frankenstein and have found that they no longer have control of their monster.”
She is unsure if Donald will run again, she says.
“I would have said absolutely not in December, because his loss was so humiliating, but because he's getting away with everything again, and because the Republicans are pushing through hundreds of voter suppression bills in state legislatures, I think Donald may indeed get the message that if he ran, he couldn't lose.
“And he really needs the power and protection of the Oval Office, because he's in so much criminal trouble and so much financial trouble.
“So, if every playing field is level, then I think there is a chance he will run, which would be devastating.
“But you know, we can't discount the fact that he's older, he's in terrible shape and also, he may be a permanent defendant for the next three-and-a-half years, because he is in so much trouble legally.”
She has her eye on the 2022 mid-terms and how the US deals with a new surge on Covid-19 cases, she says.
“I think that the 2022 election is now the most important election in my lifetime. Because if the Republicans take back either the House of Representatives or the Senate, that could very negatively impact our chances in 2024, it would undo a lot of the good President Biden has been doing.”
And Covid-19 remains a bitter legacy of her uncle’s tenure in the US, she says.
“Over 1000 Americans are dying every day again. And it's unspeakable what's been allowed to happen because of Donald's narcissism and his inability to take responsibility for anything, it's just absolutely mind blowing.”
