It’s a question that’s been pondered for ages: Do we change as we mature? Or are we destined to remain the same people we were when young?
When it comes to Donald Trump, it would seem that he hasn’t changed at all since childhood.
A new, updated biography compiled by The Washington Post contains dozens of interviews with people who knew Trump as a child, and they all say the same thing: Donald Trump is the same as he was when he was seven.
Trump was born in 1946, the fourth of five children, and his father, Fred, was already an up and coming property owner known for being ruthless when it came to business.
The family lived in a 23-room mansion in Queens, and owned two Cadillacs. They were also somewhat distant from their neighbors.
Young Donald was recalled as a bully even as a child. When a ball bounced into the Trump family garden, Donnie threatened to tell both his father and the police.
And Donald was also a cruel child, according to Dennis Burnham, who lived next door. Burnham, who was a toddler at the time, was placed in a playpen in the garden by his mother. Within moments, young Donald Trump (4 or 5 at the time) was observed standing at the fence and throwing rocks at Baby Dennis. Burnham’s mother later told her son to “stay away from the Trumps” for fear he might be beaten up by the a bullying Donald.
Another local child, Steven Nachtigall, said he never forgot Trump, who he called a ‘loudmouth bully’, once jumping off his bike and beating another boy.
The disturbing image remained in his brain decades later, he said, because “it was so unusual and terrifying at that age.”
Trump has even admitted that he was a troublemaker in school, commenting:
“I liked to stir things up and I liked to test people,. It wasn’t malicious so much as it was aggressive.”
Maliciousness would come later in Trump’s life, especially in the business world and his marriages.
All of this begs the question: Has Donald Trump actually grown or matured over the course of his life? Hardly. If anything, he’s gotten meaner, more spiteful, and more determined to attack those who dare to cross him.
Aristotle once wrote:
“Give me the child until he’s seven and I will show you the man.”
Never has that been more true than when applied to Donald Trump.