“The
Rescumlickans run the country like a slum lord runs a tenement house;
Caesar Disgustus runs the White House like a mafia 'Don' runs a whore house.”
----from “The Quotations of Chairman Joe”
Mark Landler, writing in The New York Times,
describes “A world of raffish types with unsavory
connections and unethical methods”. (1) Landler isn't the
first to discern more than a tinge of the Mafioso in the countenance
of our Caesar Disgustus.
What inspired Landler's essay was an interview with Faux
News in which Disgustus, whining about how unfairly he has been
treated, discussed the plea agreements reached between his personal
attorney Michael Cohen and federal prosecutors.
'“I
know all about flipping” Mr.
Trump told Fox News this week. “For 30, 40 years I've
been watching flippers. Everything's wonderful then they get 10
years in jail and they flop on whoever next highest one is, or as
high as you can go”. (2)
Disgustus then went on a rambling critique of the
practice finally admitting that if he were in Cohen's shoes he could
understand why he would turn state's evidence.
Landler, familiar with the precincts in which Disgustus
rose, aptly described the swamp from which he evolved.
“But the president was also evoking a whole
world—the outer boroughs of New York City, where he grew up—a
place replete with shady businessmen and mob-linked politicians,
raffish types with unscrupulous methods, unsavory connections and
uncertain loyalties.”(3) Quoting Nicholas Pileggi, a chronicler
of the mob, Landler attributes the 'president's' language “to
the Madison Club, a Democratic Party machine in Brooklyn that helped
his father, Fred Trump, win his first real estate deals in the
1930's. In those smoke-filled circles, favors were traded like cases
of whiskey and loyalty mattered above all.
“Mr. Trump honed his vocabulary over decades
through his association with the lawyer Roy Cohn, who besides working
for Senator Joseph McCarthy also represented mafia bosses like Mr.
Gotti, Tony Salerno and Carmine Galante. He also gravitated to
colorful characters like Roger J. Stone Jr., the pinkie-ring-wearing
political consultant [and Richard Nixon operative] and Mr. Stone's
onetime partner, Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman
who was convicted on Tuesday of eight counts of bank and tax fraud.”
(4) And, if it hadn't been for one lone holdout would have been
convicted on ten more counts.
'“It's kind of a subculture that most people avoid,
“ said Michael D'Antonio, one of Mr. Trump's biographers. “You
cross the street to get away from people like that. Donald brings
them close. He's most comfortable with them”'. (5)
So the 'president' knows all about, in the parlance of
the mob, 'flipping.' So does his now personal attorney Rudy Giuliani
who, when he was United States Attorney for the Southern District of
New York, ran an operation that was then dubbed “House of Pancakes”
(6) because of the frequency with which he got lower level mob
figures to finger their bosses. This is how he corralled the likes
of Mafia Boss John Gotti and nearly driving the mafia out of New
York.
There is much in this story that puzzles. Why would
Giuliani, once a crusading foe of organized crime, now finds himself
defending a man so compromised, so soiled, so greasy and now—so
desperate to call into question the legitimacy of every law
enforcement effort to bring him to justice, criticizing those
who—under pressure—turn state's evidence?
It was immediately pointed out, in the wake of the Fox
'interview', that Disgustus was not only calling into question the
legitimacy of those turning state's evidence but perhaps sending a
message to Manafort and others to hold tough. Disgustus talked about
how he admired Manafort for his refusal to cooperate with federal
investigators, criticized Cohen for turning state's evidence
comparing him to the “Rat” John Dean who turned on Richard Nixon.
Here Disgustus is doing more than questioning the legitimacy of the
techniques of law enforcement; he is, by praising resistance to the
investigation, as well as the person and family of those who now
stand convicted and who threaten further testimony, perhaps implying
a possible pardon, certainly engaging in an all-too-familiar mob
strategy of witness tampering.
Landler also quotes James Comey who described his
meeting with Disgustus much like “the New York Mafia social
clubs, an image from my days as a Manhattan federal prosecutor in the
1980's and 1990's...The Ravenite. The Palma Boys. Cafe Giardino. I
couldn't shake the picture. And, looking back, it wasn't as odd or
dramatic as I thought at the time. (7)
But Disgustus has done more than ape the language and
the countenance of the mobster. He has imbibed in the very culture.
Look again at that interview. While his critique of the practice of
turning State's evidence lingers—for once again Disgustus is
undermining the very institutions of law enforcement and public order
in a desperate attempt to save his ass—what wasn't covered is that
he added “a lot of my friends”.....
Yes, one can only imagine his 'friends'--Lewie 'the
torch', 'knuckles' Magoo, Al 'the enforcer', and “Bugs” D'Angelo.
And one can only imagine how many of his 'friends' have “flipped”
over the years as he drew close the “bucket of deplorables” and
made them his own.
The problem, of course, is that our intrepid Disgustus
does not have the stomach to be a true Mafioso. While he postures as
a “Don” he is, in fact, merely “The Donald”; a pale imitation
of the genuine article, in much the same way that 'reality'
television is a pale imitation of the genuine article. The fact is
that he is not, in a word, ruthless enough. The fact is that his
overweening need to be liked, if not loved, prevents him from putting
heads on pikes. The result is that he is left twisting in the wind
as his maladministration, damaging everything about it, spirals out
of control.
Caesar Disgustus had promised to “drain the swamp”
and, instead, “Swamped the Drain”. He has turned the White House
into a sewer into which the underbelly of American society is now
flushed, defiling the office he holds and damaging the institutions
that protect this country from enemies foreign and domestic.
“An'
Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”
Impeach
and Imprison.
___________________
- Landler, Mark. “With Mob-Tinged Vocabulary, President Evokes His Native New York”. The New York Times. Friday, August 24, 2018. Page A14
- Ibid
- Ibid
- Ibid
- Ibid
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