Mary Trump, niece of Donald Trump, is touring Australia in June 2023

On November 9, 2016, while the rest of the world was digesting the news that Donald Trump would become the 45th President of the United States, one woman was uniquely qualified to understand the potential ramifications.

Mary Trump, the daughter of Trump’s eldest brother Freddy, grew up with Donald and later became a clinical psychologist, giving her a unique insight into the mind of her uncle, whom she has since dubbed “the most dangerous man alive”.

“We knew him so well that it never occurred to us that anyone could be deceived by him,” Mary said over the phone from Massachusetts ahead of her upcoming speaking tour of Australia. “I think I had been living in a state of total denial. I was absolutely flabbergasted.

“I didn’t realize the extent to which America was willing to not only condone but to support the kinds of racism and misogyny and anti-immigrant hatred etc. that Donald represents. Let’s put it this way: It was a really bad morning.”

In her 2020 book Too much and never enough She delivers a harsh assessment of Trump, labeling him with multiple disorders, including narcissistic personality disorder, caused by his brutal, abusive upbringing at the hands of his father, Fred.

However, it wasn’t always like this.

“We all thought he was an asshole. But he was ours. He was part of the family,” she said of beginnings in Queens, New York. “He had this spark, this impulse to be kind, but it had been so distorted and practically knocked out of him by my grandfather that he didn’t know how to do it right. I would say that’s gone.”

However, that scathing assessment is unlikely to be shared by the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump in the 2020 election. How did he come so close to re-election?