What’s striking isn’t the tone. It’s the pattern.

“An alcoholic’s personality”? Isn’t that often described as being a “dry drunk”? Children of an alcoholic are also commonly said to develop what is broadly referred to as child of an alcoholic syndrome.

More accurately, this refers to a pattern of behaviors and coping traits commonly observed in adults who grew up in households where one or both parents abused alcohol. In clinical and academic contexts, this is discussed under Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACoA) or Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), not as a standalone “syndrome.”

This dynamic is not unique to alcoholism. Other parental dysfunctions can be transferred to the children they raise. These patterns can also propagate through leadership structures, shaping organizational culture and attracting people who respond to or mirror that style of control, instability, and aberrant behavior.

Across Trump’s inner circle, the common thread described here is not competence, restraint, or principle, but extremism, opportunism, and instability. When multiple senior figures are characterized as irrational, conspiratorial, zealously ideological, or ethically compromised, the issue stops being about personality conflicts and starts looking like a systemic failure of leadership and judgment at the top.

This is not normal. And it is not how serious governments function.