In her blockbuster book, Dr. Mary Trump, Ph.D. sets out a case for loathing the influence of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale on her icy grandfather Fred and Uncle Donnie. Dr. Peale, a minister, proposed consciously determining one's life-operating principles, ushering in decades of self-help gurus.
Well might Mary Trump be repulsed. Her moneyed kin forged the tenets of Peale’s book The Power of Positive Thinking into mental weapons to bludgeon family members. The trained therapist witnessed how the Trump brand of compulsory positive thinking freed them to deny her father help as his addiction to alcohol led to his death and to slough off her namesake grandmother’s complaints about her pain-wracked body. I get it.
As Queens realtors, Trumps blocked people of color from upward mobility in predominantly white neighborhoods. A federal case against their redlining proved how far beyond the pale they were willing to go to undercut entire segments of society. Their actions did not smack of Peale positivity as much as racist George Wallace vigilantism.
From Healing to Tyranny
In 2021, we watched hordes of Americans stormed the United States Capitol. Convinced of the rightness of Uncle Donnie’s call to arms and their own revolutionary intentions, they attempted to force the Legislative Branch of government to stop counting votes from a fair election - to hang a U.S. Vice President and assassinate the Speaker of the House. These two people the mob would have eliminated represent the line of succession for the U.S Presidency. Recalcitrant Republicans poured fuel before and after the insurrection, denying Joseph Biden’s electoral vote legitimacy.
We eyewitnesses stumbling away from our screens also got to witness the lawful inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Still, I look over my shoulder at mask-less faces in Florida. That 74 million citizens are open to more mayhem astounds. They carry a grudge manufactured by their rebel leader, not unlike losers of the last Civil War. As a fractured family concluded on the Jerry Springer Show after their obligatory hair-pulling, kicking and slapping brawl: "Ain't no conversating."
Dr. Peale must be turning over at Quaker Hill Cemetery Pawling, New York.
A Pity
The title of this blog harkens to What Have They've Done to My Song, Ma, a folk rock tune Melanie turned into a hit in 1971.
Among lyrics she wailed:
Look what they done to my brain, Ma.
Look what they done to my brain.
Well, they picked it like a chicken bone
And I think I’m half insane.
The pathological Trump dynasty donned familiar overpowering suits. Same as other dominant wealthy families wielding power over society without regard for the damage. Try Betsy DeVos on for size. Or the Koch brothers. Or the Mercers. All lavishly self-serving, they impose their version of truth - from overbearing religion to inequality in financial and justice systems to rightwing propaganda to warmongering. Trump’s family stands out for its pseudo everyman appeal. Taint so.
... Of What I Speak
What was once called The Center for Positive Thinking, opened by the Peale organization in 1988 in Pawling. As a freelancer in the last century, I was hired to write its visitor’s guide. Still have a copy of the glossy brochure in my files. (It is now called Peale History Center and Library and, like everything else, closed due to the pandemic).
In completing the assignment, I documented the contents of a room replicating Dr. Peale’s study at Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, the Pawling library and the minister's marriage to prime-moving Ruth. After spending hours listening to scratchy taped sermons that dipped into 50 years of the Peale ministry, I interviewed the gentleman.
Dr. Peale was about 93-years-old. He rose when I entered his office and showed a deference in our conversation that struck me as genuine - like the $20 tips he was known to leave waitresses under his empty coffee cup - this after inviting talk over the diner counter about their struggles.
Despite knowing how Mary Trump’s treacherous kin fashioned the pastor's positive thinking into a jackboot to stomp all comers, I reject the notion I was duped by Dr. Peale. I do stand more informed today about the wealthy influencers attached like barnacles to pop religious icons, corroding benign messages. Think Billy Graham's dynasty. Think Newt Gingrich and his second (or third) wife - U.S. ambassador to the Vatican in Rome. Intrigues played out in Dr. Peale's Father Knows Best America and far back into Rome's church history.
The Real Message
As Melanie sang:
Wish I could find a good book to live in
Wish I could find a good book
Well, if I could find a real good book
I’d never have to come out and look
At what they done to my song
Republicans duped by this latest attempt to distort reality might heed the last word in the title The Power of Positive Thinking. We are required to think. Discern. Question a party line. Stop swallowing conspiracy theories whole. Come out and look. As President Biden said, history requires, "enough of us" to stay tuned so we can move through an immediate catastrophe and achieve the future we envision.
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking
Mary Trump's Too Much and Never Enough....
Artwork by Vincent Mancuso
Basket Case, Still Life by Vincent Mancuso