He Was Always This Way -- Digby

[erronis]

https://digbysblog.net/2026/05/11/he-was-always-this-way/

How did I miss that? I guess there's just so much that you can't read everything.

All of our presidents did things in their youth that they were not particularly proud of: George Washington chopped down that cherry tree; Bill Clinton famously didn't inhale, but Barack Obama did. And when he was 30, George W. Bush was caught driving under the influence. (He quit drinking for good ten years later.)

Donald Trump has been a teetotaller from the jump, but when he was 33, his company evicted a 74-year-old widow from her Queens apartment. As Joe Conason reported in the May 5, 1980, edition of the Voice, the Trump Organization sent "three big fat men" to Mary Filan's apartment to clear both her belongings and her bedridden body out of the building on Barclay Avenue in Flushing.

Filan, who had recently suffered a stroke, told Conason, "They said they'd come to put me on the street because I owed four months rent. I don't owe back rent. The last thing I got from Trump was a bill for $10.20, about two weeks ago, and I sent that. They just want me out because they can get twice as much rent."

Well, Trump couldn't give up drinking, because he never started. Maybe he should've given up evicting tenants who had never done anything wrong instead. --R.C. Baker
"Trump Evicts Stroke Victim"
May 5, 1980

For more than 30 years Mary Filan -- widowed, 74 years old, and half-paralyzed from a recent stroke -- has lived in apartment 6B, 143-15 Barclay Avenue in Flushing. Last Friday afternoon, she answered the insistent doorbell, only to be pushed aside by the henchmen of city marshal Norman Katz, who proceeded to cart her belongings out to an idling truck. Taped to her door was an eviction notice from her landlords, the Trump Organization.

They took Filan's sofa, chairs, TV, jewelry, dishes, and silverware, leaving nothing but a hamper for her to sit on. The marshals and the police tried to convince her to leave, but she refused to go until a neighbor, Bob Hennessy, convinced her to stay in his apartment until she could get help.

"She was distraught," said Hennessy, and by Monday afternoon he was still unable to ascertain where her belongings had been taken. Thanks to her doctor and the Human Resources Administration, Mary Filan is resting in a bed at Parsons Hospital.

"They rang the bell," recalls Filan, "and I was still in bed. I don't get up much unless I have to. They rang and rang, and when I got to the door they pushed it open, and walked in, these three big fat men. They went right in the kitchen and started pulling out drawers, turning 'em upside down into one of these big cartons.

"They said they'd come to put me on the street because I owed four months rent. I don't owe back rent. The last thing I got from Trump was a bill for $10.20 about two weeks ago, and I sent that. They just want me out because they can get twice as much rent." Mary Filan currently pays about $200 a month for her apartment. Her income -- from Social Security and a telephone company pension -- is under $500 a month.

The Trump Organization is one of the biggest landlords in this city, a dynasty passed from father Fred to son Donald. Like most dynasties, it has flourished through the exercise of power; in earlier time, mostly through the Brooklyn Democratic machine; now, through Donald's liaisons with the governor and a variety of state agencies, particularly the Urban Development Corporation, which paid Donald Trump more than $800,000 for brokering its convention center deal. He has used political clout to obtain more than $160 million in tax exemptions for his renovation of the old Commodore Hotel on 42nd Street. Donald Trump is a very successful 33-year-old dealer and developer. So why did Trump evict Mary Filan?

"The Trumps don't get involved in any of that," said a spokesman at their Manhattan office. "The management corporation handles that kind of thing. It's part of the company, but the Trumps don't get involved with individual cases." He didn't know why Mary Filan had been evicted. She doesn't give loud parties, or cause property damage, or threaten her neighbors, who are actually fond of her.

"The Trump Organization doesn't evict people indiscriminately," he said at last, and suggested another number to call for specific comments on the Filan case. There was no answer at that number; nobody seemed to care about the details.

Two thoughts persist: How would Donald Trump feel if some corporation evicted his ill and aging parent, without notice or compassion, removing all possessions to some unknown location? And how does Trump manage to have the taxpayers subsidize so many of his enterprises? Mary Filan's hospital stay is being paid for by Medicare and Medicaid.

. . . (As horrible as this is, there is also a Part II in Digsby' tale.)

Most MAGAs probably don't believe it although there are quite a few who I assume think he was perfectly justified in kicking out the deadbeat.

This is Trump.And as much as we talk about his ignorance and psychological defects the real issue beyond anything else is the extreme lack of character. The man is a monster.

[tanyev]

1. Yep, the GOP was thrilled when they finally found the sociopath they'd been waiting for.

[paleotn]

2. He was born and raised that way. A sociopath from a line of sociopaths.

In other words, scum.

[Maru Kitteh]

3. That graphic is an AI slop mockup but the incident did happen.

He told his own nephew, Freddie III, to just let his son die, because he was disabled. Who could have guessed the “grab ‘em by the pussy” guy might not be a good person?

[erronis]

6. I apologize for not recognizing AI slop! And for not being more critical.

I would have called out the "artificiallity" of this post.

I do remember thinking that the image on the left seemed out of place.

[Maru Kitteh]

7. Look at the smaller print below the photo, "Evicted o it one od Donald Trump"

- It has the fake “old-timey” look that you get when you do family portraits at tourist traps and county fairs
- The date on the paper is “Augut$ 20Q 194B”

Those are the first things that jumped out at me. These days it’s easier to assume what you are looking at is fake and go from there.

[BigmanPigman]

4. NOT a "sociopath" but a sadistic psychopath

A sociopath sometimes can improve through a lot of years of expensive therapy and some drugs but only if they truly do want to change. The fucking moron does NOT want to change. He won't even admit to himself that he is a violent, vengeful, sadistic psychopath. He should have been drowned at birth. He IS Rosemary's Baby!

[Bev54]

5. The story may be true but I don't think the headline is

He was not a billionaire back then (if ever until he became pres) and I don't remember anyone ever calling him a billionaire then.

[Maru Kitteh]

9. It's dated "Augut$ 20Q 194B"

I’m not sure, has that date happened yet?

[Fil1957]

8. When he was a preteen he invented a game he called "make the baby cry". There was a baby or toddler who lived next door

to him, and the object of his "game" was to throw rocks at the little one. You win if you hit the kid and he/she cries. Hence the name of his game.

This was one of things that got him sent to the New York Military Academy, which was really just a fancy reform school.

[Maru Kitteh]

10. I think you're thinking of Rush Deadballs.

That’s who this story was originally about.

[Fil1957]

11. You could be right. I tend to get them confused.

[progressoid]

12. The last two paragraphs...

Most MAGAs probably don't believe it although there are quite a few who I assume think he was perfectly justified in kicking out the deadbeat.

This is Trump.And as much as we talk about his ignorance and psychological defects the real issue beyond anything else is the extreme lack of character. The man is a monster.

IMHO, maga is split into three groups.
Those who don't believe it.
Those who believe it, but don't care.
And those who believe it and support it.

Fuck them all