The other comparison that might be made of the Trump Organization (not the company of the same name), is to organized crime. This Trump Organization, like the Mafia, has a name, MAGA. It has as its head its own Don, alias Donald Trump, also known as The Don, or The Donald. The don is the boss who may not be challenged. Each don has an underboss like a deputy director and a consigliere who acts as a counselor with considerable power. In the MAGA family, both of these positions are “acting” and tenuous, and these individuals can be abandoned and replaced at the whim of the don.
The Mafia’s Five Families are of Italian descent and were founded in New York. The Trump Organization also began in New York. A recent New York Times article titled, Donald Trump’s Mob Rule, recently described Peter Navarro, currently serving a four-month prison sentence, as spending his time in jail as a “made man.” Prison guards and inmates like him because he didn’t bow to the government. It is this sense of lawlessness that seems prevalent within the MAGA world.
Going back to the days of Al Capone, Americans have been fascinated with their organized crime figures. Donald Trump is no exception. In the movie, The Godfather, Marlon Brando uses cotton balls in his cheeks to accentuate his mush-mouth inflection. IRL, the Trump character needs no assistance to ramble with incoherence to delight his crowds of MAGA soldiers. His comedic appeal as a buffoon is perhaps a relief from the normal stilted political nonsense.
Trump has embraced the Dark Side. From Nazi brown shirts marching in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us,” to rappers Sheff G and Sleepy Hallow, to Chuck Zito of the New York Hells Angles, Trump has provided them a platform. The two rappers were brought on stage at a rally in the Bronx and both were facing charges of conspiracy to commit murder and weapons possession. Chuck Zito served six years for drug conspiracy and has ties to the Gambino crime family. It may be assumed by these associations, all pretext of the Republican Party standing for law and order is as outdated as your old Blackberry phone.
Trump has long both bragged about and denied his associations with organized crime. When Trump was operating gambling casinos in Atlantic City, he had ties to Robert LiButti who was tied to Mafia boss John Gotti. Trump has denied that he knew LiButti. This is contradicted by LiButti’s daughter who has flown in the Trump helicopter with Ivanka and “the kids” and Trump attended her 35th birthday party at Trump Plaza. After the party, they continued the festivities aboard the Trump yacht.
Trump boasted in his book, The Art of the Deal, about pushing his casino projects through with a background check of just six months. This would avoid scrutiny of his Trump Plaza and Trump Tower use of mob-connected firms and overpriced concrete from mafia chieftains Fat Tony Salerno and Paul Castellano.
Trump’s longtime family lawyer and personal mentor, Roy Cohn, also represented Fat Tony Salerno, Carmine Galante, and John Gotti. In 1976, the mob had approached Trump to be a straw buyer for the Fontainebleau on Miami Beach. That hotel had a long mob history where the CIA and Sam Giancana had plotted to assassinate Fidel Castro. [Aside: From personal experience, I knew a kid in high school, Joe Vidi, whose dad was “mobbed up” and ran the front door operation at the Fontainebleau.]
Trump learned a great deal from his associations with mobsters. Their use of loyalty and fear are regular items in his toolbox. This MAGA father figure inspires a cult-like loyalty among the faithful and fulfills a sense of belonging missing from many of their lives. For current politicians who should know better, he represents a means of survival when all of politics is seen with disdain.
The mere fact that Trump is now a convicted felon awaiting sentencing, is a badge of honor in our new dystopian universe. Twenty years ago, the likes of Donald Trump would never have survived the revelations in the Access Hollywood tapes. But, in this Orwellian world, shame is now fame. His conviction is but another jewel in his authoritarian crown as he seeks to reinvent his 2016 surprise.
Our nation hasn’t seen such a corrupt president since the days of Warren G. Harding whose vices involved hush-money payments to his seven mistresses, payments for an out-of-wedlock child, and the infamous Teapot Dome Scandal of 1921. That last event involved oil reserves, no-bid contracts, drilling rights on federal land, an interest-free loan of $100,000, another $300,000 in bonds and cash, and a livestock herd. Harding’s child support payments were delivered by Secret Service agents.
Donald, meet Warren. The two of you will be historical figures sharing nearby rungs on the American Presidential Ladder of Infamy.
Footnote: Warren Harding once told the press about his active libido with the quote, “It’s a good thing I’m not a woman, I would always be pregnant. I can’t say no.”
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