A damning study of Trump’s mind that goes a long way toward explaining some damnably odd behavior.
When the CIA’s former lead shrink starts examining your head, a person might suspect that there’s trouble afoot.
There’s a long-standing principle in psychiatry that a doctor should not venture an analysis—a public profile, more formally—of someone without that person’s consent and without having made an in-person assessment. “The ethical principle seemed extreme and overdrawn,” writes Post (Narcissism and Politics, 2014, etc.) in light of the fact that other academicians, including psychologists and political scientists, regularly deliver opinions about the mind of Donald Trump. Forgive him the professional transgression, for what the author has to say is of pressing interest and helps elucidate much of Trump’s eccentric behavior. At the heart of the narrative is a portrait of the mental makeup of the narcissist, coupled with the mass psychology of a crowd of supporters who are locked into near worship of a charismatic leader. That charisma may not always be a bad thing; Post, for instance, attributes to it the success of Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi. But the narcissism component is seldom positive, and it explains many things about Trump. “The only loyalty a person with his malignant or pathological narcissism has is to himself and his own survival,” Post writes, and never mind the fate of those around that person, since loyalty flows only in the direction of Trump and not the other way. Paranoia, insecurity, bluster, constant aggression, and utter lack of empathy are other components of the template. Worse news comes at the end of this complex but unflagging account when he ponders the possibility that this will all end not with a whimper but a bang, either through the nuclear war that Trump has long feared or the refusal to relinquish office if defeated in 2020, since “the loss of the limelight which has been such a rewarding accompaniment of the presidential role will be very difficult for him to tolerate.”
A damning study of Trump’s mind that goes a long way toward explaining some damnably odd behavior.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64313-218-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
