Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Positively Trumpian

Advice for life from the president-elect's favourite pastor

issue 31 December 2016

This being the time of year for it, you’re probably thinking what form your New Year New You will take. You know — the reinvention that we’re all encouraged to go in for from 1 January. Well, I have a corker. It’s huge. It is nothing less than the programme created by Donald Trump’s spiritual mentor, and look where that got him. Before reading this formula for success, I did wonder how it was that Mr Trump got as far as the presidency; now the only wonder is that it took him this long.

The self-help book I have in mind is written by Mr Trump’s favourite pastor, Norman Vincent Peale: his well-known work The Power of Positive Thinking. Like so many self-help books, the key is in the title: you could save yourself nine quid by just taking it to heart. NVP, who died aged 95 in 1992, ministered at the Marble Collegiate Church of New York, where he conducted Mr Trump’s first marriage, to Ivana.

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