I’ve been thinking about DJT and wondering about his upbringing under Fred Sr’s household. My opinion of Donald agrees with all the mental health specialists who wrote that letter in 2017 stating he has serious multiple psychological issues and is dangerously unfit for the Presidency. His niece Mary is a Psychologist and a witness unlike any ordinary critic, and the fact that he ripped her off doesn’t diminish her experiences as reported in her recent book.
I looked into some things written about Norman Vincent Peale by psychiatrists and religious leaders at the time Trump was growing up. I know Fred took his children to Peale’s church in NYC, Donald and Ivana we’re also married there. Trump was raised on the tenets of Peale’s book, ‘The Power of Positive Thinking.’ His father was a ruthless businessman who had zero scruples, according to everything I’ve read.
The following notes are from Wikipedia and I don’t imply they’re right or wrong, but they do comport to some of what Mary Trump’s book said about the house of Fred, her grandfather.
Dr. Albert Ellis' writings repeatedly warn the public not to follow the Peale message. Ellis contends the Peale approach is dangerous, distorted, unrealistic. He compares the black or white view of life that Peale teaches to a psychological disorder (borderline personality disorder), perhaps implying that dangerous mental habits which he sees in the disorder may be brought on by following the teaching. "In the long run [Peale's teachings] lead to failure and disillusionment, and not only boomerang back against people, but often prejudice them against effective therapy."
A 1955 article by psychiatrist R. C. Murphy, published in The Nation, titled "Think Right: Reverend Peale's Panacea".
(With saccharine terrorism, Mr. Peale refuses to allow his followers to hear, speak or see any evil. For him real human suffering does not exist; there is no such thing as murderous rage, suicidal despair, cruelty, lust, greed, mass poverty, or illiteracy. All these things he would dismiss as trivial mental processes which will evaporate if thoughts are simply turned into more cheerful channels. This attitude is so unpleasant it bears some search for its real meaning. It is clearly not a genuine denial of evil but rather a horror of it. A person turns his eyes away from human bestiality and the suffering it evokes only if he cannot stand to look at it. By doing so he affirms the evil to be absolute, he looks away only when he feels that nothing can be done about it ... The belief in pure evil, an area of experience beyond the possibility of help or redemption, is automatically a summons to action: 'evil' means 'that which must be attacked ... ' Between races for instance, this belief leads to prejudice. In child-rearing it drives parents into trying to obliterate rather than trying to nurture one or another area of the child's emerging personality ... In international relationships it leads to war. As soon as a religious authority endorses our capacity for hatred, either by refusing to recognize unpleasantness in the style of Mr Peale or in the more classical style of setting up a nice comfortable Satan to hate, it lulls our struggles for growth to a standstill ... Thus Mr Peale's book is not only inadequate for our needs but even undertakes to drown out the fragile inner voice which is the spur to inner growth)
Meyer quotes Peale as saying, "No man, however resourceful or pugnacious, is a match for so great an adversary as a hostile world. He is at best a puny and impotent creature quite at the mercy of the cosmic and social forces in the midst of which he dwells." Meyer noted that Peale always "reacted to the image of harshness with flight rather than competitive fight",and the only solution Peale offers out of this state of helplessness are his autosuggestive "techniques", which he claims will give people the power of God.
Meyer adds that the proof that positive thinking cannot work is that according to Peale, even with God's power on one's side, one still cannot face negative reality, which is always stronger.
Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, professor of applied Christianity at the Union Theological Seminary, reported similar concerns about positive thinking. "This new cult is dangerous. Anything which corrupts the gospel hurts Christianity. And it hurts people too. It helps them to feel good while they are evading the real issues of life.”
This seems like fear, like whistling through a cemetery, or covering your eyes to avoid being a witness. The piece in the ‘Atlantic’ on September 3rd touched on Trump’s aversion to seeing people with disabilities or the scars of battle, he turned his back, didn’t want to look at them. Remember his mocking of the journalist during his rally? His bullying is to cover up his fear that it could happen to him. This is also why he hasn’t been able to offer compassion for the people lost to the pandemic under his watch, he knows it’s happening on his watch so denial is a reflex. “I take no responsibility” should be his tattoo. His remarks about POWs being losers because they were failures who got caught are horrid, and tells me he’s terrified he will be captured and become a prisoner for all the crimes he’s committed.
I can almost hear Fred telling him not to cry when he took a tumble, no emotion allowed that showed weakness. Be strong! But he has taken a huge tumble with this assault on the military and he’s cornered. His motto is Punch Back, Harder!
Pray for America every day, he will undoubtedly pull a bigger, more dangerous “Wag the Dog” diversion than this Law and Order campaign strategy.
