Trump Is a Lost Cause. We Have to Change Ourselves.
The president is a reflection of our worst instincts
Even before I agreed to write The Art of the Deal for Donald Trump three decades ago, I sensed his extreme self-absorption and utter lack of conscience. I wrote the book anyway for the money. To do so, I set aside my concerns about the kind of man he was, and more importantly, the kind of man I wanted to be.
I never imagined that writing a book for a buffoonish real estate developer could eventually help get him elected president of the United States. The fact that it did is a source of shame and regret I will always carry.
But working with Trump also prompted a reckoning with the Trump in me — the least appealing aspects of myself that I tended to deny and disown, rationalize, minimize, and project onto others, as Trump does every day.
Trump and I grew up wounded in similar ways. We each had a parent who was harsh and fiercely demanding — my mother, and his father — and one who was mostly absent — my father, and his mother. We both longed for approval from our harsher parent and went to extraordinary lengths to build identities separate from them. Each of us sought in the external world the acceptance, love, and security that were so unavailable at home. Both of us mistakenly assumed that more…
