I can't say there was a last straw because there have been so many straws, but certainly the horrors at the border, separating children from their parents, the torture, the kidnapping and the incarceration of them in cages was unthinkable, unbearable. When an opportunity presented itself to me to do something, I needed to take a leap.
Donald's ego has been and is a fragile and inadequate barrier between him and the real world, which, thanks to his father's money and power, he never had to negotiate by himself.
At home - where my grandmother certainly had to deal with Donald more than my grandfather did because he was at work all the time - he was incredibly disrespectful to her. He didn't listen to her. He was a slob. He tormented - in one way or another, I think he tormented all of his siblings.
The simple fact is that Donald is fundamentally incapable of acknowledging the suffering of others. Telling the stories of those we've lost would bore him. Acknowledging the victims of COVID-19 would be to associate himself with their weakness, a trait his father taught him to despise.
That's what sociopaths do: they co-opt others and use them toward their own ends - ruthlessly and efficiently, with no tolerance for dissent or resistance.
Certainly, in the case of my dad, who was the oldest son, heir apparent and namesake, there was harsh discipline and humiliation which Donald, seven and a half years younger, was able to witness and learn very specific lessons from: don't be like Freddy, don't be kind, don't be generous, don't have 'frivolous' interests.
Donald saw his younger brother Robert as weaker and therefore enjoyed tormenting him. He repeatedly hid Robert's favorite toys, pretending he had no idea where they were.
Donald has been institutionalized for most of his adult life, so there is no way to know how he would thrive, or even survive, on his own in the real world.
For the first forty years of his real estate career, my grandfather never acquired debt. In the 1970s and '80s, however, all of that changed as Donald's ambition grew larger and his missteps became more frequent.
Donald Trump may have a long undiagnosed learning disability that for decades has interfered with his ability to process information.
Media failed to notice that not one member of Donald's family, apart from his children, his son-in-law and his current wife said a word of support of him during the entire campaign.
Donald's monstrosity is the manifestation of the very weakness within him that he's been running from his entire life. For him, there has never been any option but to be positive, to project strength, no matter how illusory, because doing anything else carries a death sentence; my father's short life is evidence of that.
I think the simplest way to put it is to say that Donald continues to need to prove to his father that he's the tough guy, the killer, the best, you know, that he's winning all the time, and above all, that he's not weak. And the ways to be weak in my family were to be kind, to admit mistakes, and to apologize.
For Donald, lying was primarily a mode of self-aggrandizement meant to convince other people he was better than he actually was.
Donald began to realize that there was nothing he could do wrong, so he stopped trying to do anything 'right.' He became bolder and more aggressive because he was rarely challenged or held to account by the only person in the world who mattered - his father.
Donald's need for affirmation is so great that he doesn't seem to notice that the largest group of his supporters are people he wouldn't condescend to be seen with outside of a rally.
No one knows how Donald came to be who he is better than his own family. Unfortunately, almost all of them remain silent out of loyalty or fear. I'm not hindered by either of those.
Besides being driven around Manhattan by a chauffeur whose salary his father's company paid, in a Cadillac his father's company leased to 'scope out properties,' Donald's job description seems to have included lying about his 'accomplishments' and allegedly refusing to rent apartments to Black people.
Donald was to my grandfather what the border wall has been for Donald: a vanity project funded at the expense of more worthy pursuits.
The divisive environment my grandfather created in the family is the water that Donald has always swum in, and that division continues to benefit him at the expense of everyone else.
