From TPM Reader HW …

I came from a very abusive household. My mother has the same cluster personality disorders as Trump and I was the focus of her physical and emotional assault. Where that helped me with Trump, is my years of therapy allowed me to see all of the patterns. It was all there and in some ways, it helped me recognize that my childhood experience was very real even as many tried over the years to normalize it or minimize it. I think that the Trump children are horrifying individuals, but I still have some bit of empathy for them. Not everyone can pull themselves out of the hell that is a crazy parent. I have a good life and a great family. My brother, however, is a financially insolvent drug addict who is repeating all the cycles with his kids.

Continue reading “Your De-Trumping Story #12” →

From TPM Reader WH …

I was going to hold off on replying to your call for De-Trumpifying stories, but the response from reader BW really hit home and heartened me to share this.

I can vividly remember tuning in to the first GOP debate in 2015 and having my schadenfreude boomerang right back at me as soon as it became clear that none of the candidates or moderators knew how to respond to Trump’s bullying and buffoonery (or the audience’s enthusiasm for it). It immediately took me back to my stepdad—the easily disprovable lies about his own accomplishments and equally outrageous fabrications to disparage others, someone who rarely brought in any sort of income but spent freely on things ordered off late-night TV, a man who used his height and baggy clothes to hide flab and exude dominance. My stepdad even had a very weird combover system going on, except for days when he opted for a “NO SPIN ZONE” hat. So a lot of overlap.

Continue reading “Your De-Trumping Story #11” →

From TPM Reader HS …

My De-Trumping is all about gaining historical perspective on how we got to the present moment and what the Democratic Party has to do to both move the country forward AND win the 2022 elections. And there is no better way to do that than dive into Rick Perlstein’s four volume masterpiece of our nation’s political and social history from Goldwater to Reagan. I lived through this period (born in 1950) and was reading progressive journalism that whole time (my lefty parents subscribed to The Nation, The New Republic, Ramparts, I.F.Stone’s Weekly, etc.), but wow, the stuff Perlstein digs up that you didn’t know about at the time it was happening is astonishing!

Continue reading “Your De-Trumping Story #10” →

From TPM Reader JO …

All my life, during good presidencies and bad, the imagery of Washington has always meant something to me. Whether actually visiting, walking down the mall and gazing at the familiar buildings with a stirring of childhood patriotism, or seeing the famous façades in news photographs or paintings or movies, I’ve always responded emotionally. Not Bush, nor Reagan, nor even Nixon could besmirch the basic positive meaning of Washington, for me — I was a small child when Nixon resigned but it always seemed like, as bad as he was, the Presidency itself, on the most symbolic visual level, remained somehow untouched.

Continue reading “Your De-Trumping Story #9” →