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Too Much and Never Enough
Mary L. Trump
Contributed by Reynaldo Lenzi
Content
Overview
Plot Summary
Context
Themes
Characters
Discussion Questions
Chapter Summaries
Chapter 1 The House
Chapter 2 The Great Son
Chapter 3 The Great I-Am
Chapter 4 Expecting to Fly
Chapter 5 Grounded
Chapter 6 A Zero-Sum Game
Chapter 7 Parallel Lines
Chapter 8 Escape Velocity
Chapter 9 The Art of the Bailout
Chapter 10 Nightfall Does not Come at Once
Chapter 11 The Only Currency
Chapter 12 The Debacle
Chapter 13 The Political is Personal
Chapter 14 A Civil Servant in Public Housing
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Chapter 6 A Zero-Sum Game
Summary

The sixth chapter begins with a traumatizing incident Mary experienced as a child. One night, she woke up to the sight of her father pointing a rifle at her mother, Linda, and laughing maniacally. All the stress from work and heavy drinking were finally getting to Freddy and his marriage with Linda was unraveling. Mary Trump’s parents managed to smooth things out for a while after the incident, but it was clear that things were not going to work out for them, and in 1970, Linda finally decided to get a divorce.

Trump’s sister Maryanne was having her own marital troubles at the time. David Desmond, her then-husband, lost his Jaguar Dealership, putting the family’s finances in dire straits. Even though the Desmonds enjoyed the benefits of living in a rent-free Trump apartment and having their medical expenses covered by Trump Management, they still had to buy food, a feat that became increasingly difficult with neither of them working. For all the wealth Fred Trump had accumulated over time, most of his children were not faring well. Elizabeth lived in a dingy one-bedroom apartment and Freddy was prevented from buying his own house and forced to stay with his family in a run-down Trump Highlander. All of the three had learned early on that asking for help was regarded as a sign of weakness or greed and have thus refrained from doing so.

When her financial situation finally became unbearable, Maryanne started to approach her mother, asking her for some change for the laundry. Without asking any questions, Mary Trump gave her daughter cans of coins she would collect from washers and dryers that were placed in her husband’s buildings. As Maryanne would later admit, the coins saved her family from starving. As for her husband David, Fred eventually hired him as a parking attendant at one of his properties. The job came only after Maryanne carefully hinted he could not find work anywhere.

Trump started to work at his father’s company shortly after his graduation. Fred immediately appointed him as a vice president of several smaller companies belonging to Trump Management, hired him as a banker, and gave him a building to manage. Trump was given more respect and money on his first days of work than Freddy could ever hope to receive. It was a way of putting his oldest son in his place while at the same time laying the groundwork for Trump to become the heir to his empire. Trump talked to his father with an ease Freddy could never manage. The two had a similar, myopic world-view not shared by Freddy, whose experience at college, in the National Guard, and at TWA exposed him to various bright people who believed money was not the most important thing in life.

Analysis

In layman’s terms, a zero-sum game refers to a situation where a person or a group of people can only benefit from the loss of another person or a group. Fred Trump saw the world as a zero-sum game, where one could only profit at the expense of others. He instilled this skewed perspective in Trump, who now leads the nation on the basis of his father’s (mis)understanding of the world. Seeing that Freddy’s outlook differed wildly from that held by his father and little brother, he could never hope to move up in Fred’s company or gain a modicum of respect or acknowledgement from his father. The trouble with Freddy was that he could neither get his father’s approval nor stop desiring it. The hopelessness of his situation eventually seeped into his relationship with Linda, as shown by the rifle incident at the beginning of the chapter, and ultimately resulted in the dissolution of their marriage.

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Chapter 5 Grounded
Chapter 7 Parallel Lines
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