That's one theory. Based on emotion.
Another, based on facts/results, is that he simply is as he seems--a businessman who for decades publicly pointed out potentially long-term problems with the way his favorite country was being run.
4
Regarding DeNiro, I must modify my response to a James Woods tweet about Illeana Douglas' smarts: "Was heartbreaking in Cape Fear. Her vulnerability and strength the perfect foil for the brilliant DeNiro's evil."
Illeana Douglas liked my tweet! As did Andrew Sandoval, a Grammy nominated producer. So much for my 15 minutes… ;)
DeNiro plays one character—himself, albeit always with a beautifully crafted script. Remove the script and there's not much there there.
DeNiro and Streep have the same problem: They're always telling the audience: "See what a great actor I am." Neither makes it real, therefore.
3
America has publicly needed the aspect of "a dark alternative universe" for a long time. This aspect perfectly mirrors the country that America really and truly is.
There is a reason why films such as "Goodfellas" and "The Godfather" (and its sequels) are so popular and deeply reflect American society and culture. These movies showcase characters that Americans wish to be like.
Since the dawn of "entertainment," Americans have been blinded by "movie stars." These stars are part of the firmament. In our late 20th, and early 21st Century, the concept of the star has been further embellished by the concept of the "celebrity." President Trump studied on and learned from the best in a truly great American arena -- Yankee Stadium.
I had the opportunity to "waunder around job sites with [my] dad," too. And later worked on them. The working person is the essence of America & the bottom line is that one does whatever one must in order to get the job done. In many vignettes & venues this does involve "cheating and fixing and lying." American government is all about cheating & lying and fixing. It always has been & it always will be. Ours is an embedded system of corruption that "The Untouchables" cannot correct.
One of the venerable institutions of which America needs a revival & rebirth is the neighbourhood & community "Mom & Pop" corner candy store. That is part of the essential infrastructure that President Trump was elected by the American People to restore.
16
Look, he's president of the United States. This kind of half-entertainment political satire does nobody any political good. It just feeds your sense of how clever you are and alienates people who might become allies.
Enough.
25
@Howard
Yup, he is president of the United States, and as such is fair game for satire. Any public official is. Do you really think that someone who is alienated by this column, can be convinced of the danger to the US but sweet words and compliments? If so, please give a useful example. We are open to your suggestions.
46
@Howard Unfortunately, he is not a legitimate president, having been elected with the intervention of a hostile foreign nation.
29
@Howard this isn't satire, howard. this is about what's happening to the country. we can't solve the problem if we can't talk about him.
55
The problem with America, one of many, is that our political thinking is fundamentally dichotomized between our 'liberal' and 'conservative' choices. We want to help people more and yet 'run up the budget.' Or we want to be self-reliant and 'cut the budget' -- even though most of those people are hypocritical.
The answer is neither -- and Maureen Dowd should take notice.
Ironically, in response to these cataclysmic changes, I wrote: "Kill Trump: Invoke the 25th -- A Revolution of the Human Spirit." It's about using the various technological revolutions of the past 50 years to split the atom of human potential.
It's our only hope.
2
This is one of the more pernicious effects of a “special counsel” investigation – eventually, through two degrees of separation, every sentient life form living must be interviewed, threatened, blackmailed on that 30-year-old cannabis possession bench warrant, and paraded as the loose nut (or bolt) that will bring down a skyscraper – such as Weisselberg. Because inquiring minds want to know, I wonder how well De Niro would fare as the target of such an investigation.
Most American men of an age would list among their favorite movies “The Godfather”, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, and “Goodfellas”. Most probably wouldn’t cite chick flicks, although I’m also partial to “You’ve Got Mail”. But Maureen obviously is writing to women, here – and certainly not to someone like De Niro. You know this by her use of a Godfather II scene that she seems to believe happened in Godfather I.
If this is the first time Maureen has twigged to the fact that Trump dealt with mobsters his whole life – just who does anyone think you used to buy cement FROM in NYC? – then there’s something girlishly naïve about her whole persona; and “girlish” was the last thing I would have associated with Maureen Dowd over decades of hard-bitten journalism and commentary. Frankly, I think it started with that overdose of pot she mistakenly took once it was legal in Colorado.
But I’m beginning to wonder if she’s too far gone at this stage to EVER get close to Trump again. He’d probably like Kevin, though.
16
@Richard Luettgen
Dowd is not writing to this woman with this piece, and hey, what kind of crack is that anyway? As if the bulk of us compulsively consume chick lit and flicks and Blahniks for breakfast because that's just what we girls do. Actually I think the Blahniks might be shoes, but what do I know?
Maureen phoned this one in. She's turned her coat inside out, now vilifies the one she used to fawn over and running out of spleen to boot. Ho hum.
9
@Richard Luettgen
That whole "rule of law" thing not workin' for ya, fella?
5
Checks in the mail Dick- Regards, Don
1
in the end the Feds only caught Al Capone for not paying his taxes (on illegal activities), If Mueller does the whole job on the Trump crime family he will surely bring it down on Trump`s money laundering of Russian oligarch`s money. eg
1/ Trump sold an abandoned (unused for 2+yrs) Florida house to a Russian oligarch for $90 million ( a $45+ million profit). The oligarch apparently never visited it before buying it & bulldozed the house never using it. (Can you say kickback ?)
2/ Trump`s Sec of Commerce W. Ross was the co-chairman of the Bank of Cyprus when it was the favorite place in the world for Russian oligarchs to launder their money.
3/ Eric & Don Jr Trump have both disclosed that Russians were the source of the crime family`s financing when banks refused to even talk to them.
America , are you really no better than Trump & his abettors ? If so prove it !
127
Unfortunately when you have a House, Senate and Supreme Court and big dollar donors letting you get away with all this stuff and a high percentage of the public that seems not to care, there does not seem to be much good light at the end of the tunnel. The Fox is loose in the Hen House and those that are suppose to be protecting the chickens are absent. Ain't America a great country. Putin must be smiling.
33
From a former mob prosecutor with no non-public knowledge of the investigation or the facts. It is no coincidence that Mueller's team has some of the most experienced mafia prosecutors in the country. The potential RICO predicate acts (underlying crimes needed to charge racketeering) appear to be legion: money-laundering, mail and wire fraud, obstruction, etc. Mueller may not charge racketeering for strategic reasons, but the Trump Organization and its affiliates could, in theory, be charged as a racketeering enterprise. It has a vertical structure and all alleged crimes have "commonality", i.e., they serve to enrich and protect the members and associates and the leader. I would not be surprised to see a Trump Organization RICO indictment that leaves Trump out--to avoid the legal fight over charging a sitting president. Such an indictment could stretch back to the earliest predicate acts of the enterprise.
49
Trump sounds pretty realistic: idealistic and brutally aware of the realities of human motivation. I like him.
5
It is difficult to make a
coherent comment to
your amusing article.
This is real life.
A great deal is impacted:
the water we drink, the
air we breathe, the
education of children,
the treatment of minors
accompanying their parents
to seek asylum, moral values
are flaunted, lies are accepted.
There are critical matters
at hand such as the right
to openly choose who one loves,
the right to abort a fetus,
the embrace of dictators
who seek harm.
The lights do not go on
after two hours as in a film.
There is long-standing
damage with the potential
for more. We cannot turn it
off or get "burned out".
Our voices matter,
good journalism matters
and our votes will matter.
37
Megyn Kelly leads off her autobiography with the story of Trump’s threats and her probable poisoning right before the first debate. An impartial reader could only conclude that Megyn believes that Trump had her poisoned, but she’s too afraid that he’ll attack her kids to say so.
This circumstantial case against Trump is powerful, suggesting an inquiry into the identity of the mysterious limo driver who insisted on supplying Megyn with a cup of coffee - immediately followed by intense illness.
It’s amazing that this firsthand story from a credible person has received no media attention
23
This is probably one of the most insightful pieces about Trump's psychology that I've read. The only thing missing is Trump's dementia.
Everyone really needs to vote on Nov 6 to cast out Trump's Republican enablers. Our democracy is in serious danger.
34
So...the truth finally comes out. "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse"...only in this case, "he" was "the country". And yet the people who voted for him still think he's the greatest president we've ever had. P.T. Barnum and H.L. Mencken, wherever they are, must feel pretty smug; all these years later, they were proven right beyond their most feverish imaginings.
21
Then again, Michael Cohen isn't a particularly credible witness. If the idea is to take Trump down in court, there better be irrefutable evidence and witnesses that are very difficult to discredit.
7
A spot-on account of our great pretender president Don the Con, who is running this country like a crime boss--but without any inklings of empathy and concern that trickled through occasionally in Tony, the fictional crime boss in "The Sopranos."
I started thinking about people's attraction to heroes and anti-heroes.
I am watching 3 of our youngest grandchildren here in northern Utah, who love stories and movies. They really are caught up emotionally with the heroes and heroines in these stories, and I see them root for the good guys and girls.
By contrast, it is pretty clear Trump thinks superficially and in stereotypes, but his role models are the bullying destructive kind who know no shame--the anti-heroes of Dirty Harry and De Niro's portrayals of crime bosses. Who did Donnie root for as a child when he watched "Wizard of Oz"? The witch, perhaps.
Maybe this answers the question why Trump's avid voters adore and cheer on Trump's bullying, unstable, incompetent, and cruel presidential behavior.
It's the "Archie Bunker effect" based on the 1980s' TV show about an aging working-class bigot who lived in Queens. So while many viewers were laughing at the comedic, satiric portrait of a bigot (in the wake of the civil rights movement), it was discovered that a fair number of viewers watched the show because they loved and rooted for "Archie," since he said what they were thinking. The anti-hero was their hero.
The Trump presidency replays the Archie Bunker effect.
22
I get the resemblance, but only if you cherry pick the scenes. Brando's (and DeNiro's) Godfather is an allegorical American success story. Vito leaves the medieval Sicilian society of blood and omertà after his father is assassinated and his own life at risk. But in America he finds the same social rhythms and says to Michael that his decision to pursue this life was so that his family would not be puppets dancing on strings held by the pezzonovante (the ninety).
I was at Wharton Graduate School in the late 1980's and we had many corporate chiefs who came in to pitch their companies and recruit graduates. There was a very competitive real estate program. But in all of this context, Trump was less than a nonentity, he was already a clownish figure, talking big, and then investing (and losing) OPM (other people's money] ; the Apprentice featured comically contrived test situations and debased applicants.
His style of great exaggeration and circus tent hype came to him during his failed attempts in Atlantic City. Then the travesty of Trump School, Trump Steak, Trump the Brand. I would give much to know the real income behind all the blather about what his "brand" is worth. Perhaps, as Jovanka are discovering, not so much.
31
Perhaps we need to separate the "family" at the border. Our country's electorate needs to build an impermeable wall where the actions and prevarications of the White House are separated from the voices of reason and integrity incumbent to democracy and the good of the American people. Without a clear means to profit from their malevolent actions, the Trump administration will eventually cannibalize itself and collapse under the weight of its own hubris. Absent the means and the audience to benefit, the motive declines. Congress should not be afraid of the putative political mob. The gun to their head is the NRA, curried favor, and political survival. If the electorate finally fails to accept this behavior, sanity, decency, and the will of the
people will win.
13
Yes, I'm familiar with the comparison and wholeheartedly agree.
I, for one, cannot wait until the paranoia really takes hold. Until Trump and his associates "go to the mattresses".
Trump, for all his common man protestations, appears to aspire to a more refined image. But like mafia boss Paul Castellano, who also had aspirations, he may ultimately find himself undone and in the gutter.
7
Paying hush money to former lovers is routine among the rich and famous, including politicians. It is ample reason to vote against a political candidate, but it is not illegal, unless the money is paid from campaign donations.
There was nothing illegal about the Trump Tower meeting. It would not have been illegal if Trump Sr. and Vladimir Putin had personally attended. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump met privately with heads of foreign states during the 2016 election campaign.
6
I see this column as a wonderful companion piece to Maggie Haberman's piece today about Jared and Ivanka, two of the other members of the Trump/Kushner crime family.
Historically, criminal enterprises have not attracted the brightest people, self proclaimed very stable genius aside. And we see this writ large with Donald and his offspring, in matters big and small. They have to stick together, even as the ship is listing, because they are unemployable anywhere else. Don Jr. was a bartender/ski bum prior to becoming a "top executive" at the Trump Organization. Jared ran the Observer into the ground and Ivanka couldn't keep her clothing line going because it was overpriced junk. These people, along with the Michael Cohens of the world, might detest one another, as evidenced by Jared's enemies list, but they are nonetheless, bound together in service of the larger enterprise, jockeying for position and favor.
When I walk past Trump Tower, it flashes through my head that it's just a glitzier version of the Ravenite Social Club, packed with Russians who have laundered their money through the Trumps. The epicenter of the gang's world. And at some point, somebody won't be able to keep their story straight either through incompetence or just deciding to exit the scheme before the others. At that point, it will all spill out and I bet we ain't seen nothing yet. This family is up to its eyeballs in misdeeds, for many many years.
28
Definition: "Don" is a person in charge of a criminal organization who typically has absolute or nearly absolute control over his subordinates, is greatly feared by them for his ruthlessness...and profits from the criminal endeavors in which his organization engages.
Sounds an awful lot like our Don in the White House. It doesn't seem that the 'fear' part has at all set in with his adoring loyalists but it sure puts the fear of God in me.
12
... Or in Helsinki
1
Trump is all that you say and more. The real question to me is why the Republicans that we elected in the Senate and House are completely OK with Trump's behavior. Most of them have not had the privileged youth experience of our president but they are behaving like they are a significant part of his mob. We could have put a stop to all of this if our Congress would just have done something. Perhaps this mob thought and behavior is a part of all of us; a more primitive aspect of our human nature. We can override such behavior and we must. Trump brings it out by his threats and his Don like actions. But we need to quell this at the polls in November, if we are to correct the damage caused by Trump and his merry band of mobsters.
20
The sad and truly scary part is Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. When he was in Helsinki, John McCain and Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan were standing right next to him. Trump ain’t alone. He cannot be doing this by himself. Of course the Republican Party loses all legitimacy if they take him down. I guess they really are a crime family, which is why their affinity lies with Putin and Russia. It all makes sense.
13
"Eeeez throoo"--it's true!--said my French lady friend, a Visiting Professor of French at the University of Kansas. The truth has long been through with The Don. The only question is when the American people will be fortunate enough to be through with him, too.
13
"Trump doesn’t have the baseline intellect and experience to be proficient at governing. His proficiency is this mob style of bullying and tough-guy talk.”
This is exactly why Trump is such a monumental failure at governance and diplomacy. I just saw him this morning saying he would shut down the government if the Democrats don't vote to fund his border wall - you know, the one he promised Mexico would pay for. He doesn't realize he's just handed the Democrats a wonderful gift.
And regarding the scene from "Sunset Boulevard" that Trump thinks is so wonderful, he seems to have forgotten the salient point - Norma Desmond is insane.
91
As we use to say back in the day in Brooklyn guys like Trump are Wanabees. Most tough wise guys I came to meet never let on they were wise guys.
28
I shudder when I think about what this guy's doing to the environment, parks, social safety-net programs, and on, ad infinitum. Please America, wake up and vote this guy out--way out!
24
Ms. Dowd, you have to admit you did much to bring down Clinton while helping trump win the election. None of this is surprising since the trump we see today is quite similar to the one we knew before he took office.
32
And like all mob movies, even the three Godfather films, they all end with the main protagonists either dead, deported or in jail.
The main lesson? That eventually, crime doesn't pay.
10
I also believe that Trump may be becoming so delusional that he actually believes his perception of himself and his accomplishments are reality, and that it's the mainstream media that's trying to gaslight him, not the opposite.
14
What Trump doesn't realize is the people he admired didn't have to grab the spotlight with a display of false bravado. They earned their way by excelling in their craft and the aura followed.
2
I'm so sick of reading comments berating, bashing people who voted for Trump. For many voters, the choices in the 2016 presidential election were between two flawed candidates. I do believe that election rules still stand that each voter has the right to vote for the candidate of his or her choice, without coercion or retribution.
Has not one of these commenters throwing darts ever made a mistake in their lives, been sorry for an action, or ever voted for a candidate that proved to be less than what they expected? Is it not acceptable (or allowed) for one to change his or her opinion?
I did not vote for Trump and am of like mind with DeNiro's take on him. At the time of the election, however, I assumed that he would be incompetent, but I did not envision him becoming the sorry, hateful, bigoted president that he turned out to be - in spite of my having been very active in politics on all levels for many years and being more aware than most regarding current news, politics, and environmental issues.
Instead of wasting time and energy flogging people for their political choices in the past election, we need to get these people and others who have begun "to see the light" to join forces with us to take back our country before it is too late. We need each and every one of them.
8
At least the mafia values Honor, whereas our current POTUS simply cannot comprehend such an abstract concept. For him, honor is only bestowed, as in a gift, or a compliment - it is an external thing, not a part of what makes a person worthy of respect.
11
Oh, I really really hope Mike has some Sean on tape saying some really cool stuff!! (huge laugh emoji here!)
12
But of course ! TIME magazine got it wrong last week, with their cover that morphed Trump into Putin back & forth. A more revealing & accurate animation would have shown the president morphing back & forth between smoldering squinting Clint Eastwood and madame megalomania Gloria Swanson. Make my day, Norma ! Except, who's that in the coffee shop & swimming pool ?
5
I love movies. I am passionate about them. They let me peek into windows I will never get to open and teach me about humans here and everywhere, good or otherwise.
One movie type I have not and will not watch is gangster movies. I'd rather not learn about people who put supper on their families' tables by committing despicable acts as profession. Their way to that life and their conscience while living it are of no interest to me and I'd rather not touch it.
This is one of the reasons I so detest the Trump presidency. This man has always been an alien - untouched by human feelings, curiosity, empathy or conscience. He embodied the gangsters I hate. I avoided knowing anything about him until he invaded my world with the birther outrage and the conspiracies he invented around it.
And now he is president of our dystopian existence and, unlike a novel, a movie or a TV show, we just can't close him or turn him off.
12
The base of the republican party loves this stuff. Macho, testosterone driven displays of bullying and bravado are seen as something to strive for. Take no prisoners and win at any cost is seen as a glowing positive. Beat down your opponent until they tap out or are unconscious. Use the military as a means of chest thumping power...the Washington D.C. parade is right around the corner. Threaten, intimidate, lie, cheat, steal, take what you want with no regard for what happens to anyone else and you have Donald Trump. When presenting these lovely traits to his base they smile and shake their heads in an approving manner because, well, this is how we show the world how you become great...again.
11
And like Capone, his undoing will be his tax evasion.
13
The mob was very adept at using fear to achieve their goals. Destroying, not contributing to communities, through graft, loan sharking, drugs, exploiting women while lacking compassion, empathy and conscience all for personal gain for their organization. Yes, an adept description of this Administration and most Republicans.
The premise, lies are not illegal, regarding this Administration has a tragic flaw. Outright lies told on a daily basis in order to delibrately manipulate a base with the intentions to exploit them should be illegal. It is a violalation of their Oath of Office.
It has become a civil war of the psyche, constant negative, polarizing, coarse discourse by the most overt opportunists in US history to achieve political objectives that are detrimental to the country.
The irony is, as a Vietnam War protester, it is difficult to fathom the day would come when the tables would turn and the FBI, CIA and the Department of Justice would become victims of of insanity rather then participating in it.
9
All laughing aside, it doesn’t seem possible that Trump is not an organized crime figure; Atlantic City gambling, New York real estate, global real estate, Russian real estate.
But, is that unfair? Could he actually be an honest, legitimately successful law abiding entrepreneur and is widely misunderstood?
No tax returns, no legitimate loans from commercial banks, no declaration of preelection business activities and no end in sight to the steady drumbeat of money laundering innuendo.... give me a break, Trump strongly smells of illegality.
18
An interesting and fun column, Maureen.
However, despite how much fun (and truth) there might be to 'calling-out' Don as a mobster, it would be of greater seriousness, accuracy, and better effective 'strategy' in dumping him, if he were 'called-out', exposed, expunged, and deposed by 'we the American people' simply firing a loud, public, sustained, 'in the streets', but totally non-violent "Shout (not shot) heard round the world" to ignite an essential continuation of our American "Political/economic, social(ist) and racial Revolution Against Empire" to take back 'our' country from the ultra-wealthy, ultra-powerful, ultra-entrenched, and ultra-non-democratic Royalist/Loyalists who are the < 1/10th of 1% who don't give a rat's tail for 'we the people'.
Which is why my only demonstration, march, and protest sign simply shouts-out in it's Revolutionary "strategic narrative":
DUMP
EMPEROR
TRUMP
and on the reverse side, under the image of 'our' (not the Emperor's) American flag:
"We can't be an EMPIRE"
6
not Neri, Rocco
You're all forgetting one important thing. Trump's supporters are thrilled with Trump's mob connections , not offended. They believe all politicians are corrupt. They also believe Trump is their guy like so many New Yorkers worshipped Gotti.
12
Don donnie " little hands " trump ( his hands are too small to grasp the concept of honest work or ethics ) and Don Vlad " the magician " Putin ( he knows how to make people disappear ) are a classic example of Mob style oligarchs trying to take over the world. trump will fail, thats what he does best. But as long as they sell Vodka in Russia Vlad will be in charge. There are lots and lots of other " Dons " in the world , these two just happen to be in the spotlight and are probably the most dangerous to the world.
5
I always wondered about the squints. Eastwood?
New movie: High Plains Grifter
12
Where is that column about your siblings and what they think of the failing New York president now?
Do they still love him or what?
10
What’s missing in Maureen’s story? Maybe that Trump can’t read, can’t count, can’t plan, can’t formulate entire thoughts, can’t tell if he’s standing in the rain?
Which means the real story isn’t this dotard’s debacle, but the coterie of inappropriate appointees suggested to Trump by a handful of deranged billionaires, who happen also to run the GOP Congress and a hugely successful brainwashing propaganda machine that reshapes reality for about 40% of voters.
23
A swing and a miss, Maureen. Even among mobsters, a promise has some meaning; not for Trump. And a mob boss who discarded and back-stabbed his associates the way Trump does his, would not live long. Trump knows this -- that's why he's only a fake mob boss, not a real one.
23
Of course he admires Clint Eastwood, who has had multiple children with multiple Baby Mommas, only a few of whom he married. Eastwood is, of course, a hero to the Party of Family Values!
12
It is stunning how such an honorably honest figure as Michael Cohen turned into an "incredible liar" in such a short period of time. I'm not sure how that happens but I am much impressed.
According to Ms. Dowd's column, apparently the president models his squint on Clint Eastwood. I would have chosen a more porcine life form for comparison, but then, what do I know about squints beyond having once lived next door to a pig farm?
No, I'm not talking about the White House as my former neighbor.
11
That Trump is a criminal cannot be anything but obvious, and perhaps one day, this man's criminality will be proven to the American people in a court of law. But Trump is a symptom, not the disease.
The far more important question is how this guy got into the Oval Office. The flaws in our current federal electoral process (dark and foreign money, gerrymandering, voter suppression, corporate "personhood," the Electoral College itself, etc.) have reached a stage wherein notions of democracy are becoming meaningless. And even as I write this opinion, the minority-majority Congress has no interest changing a thing. Why should it?
16
"It’s all about self-interest and a war of all against all. "
His political career has, accordingly, been nasty and brutish. May it also be short.
8
"...Trump doesn’t have the baseline intellect and experience to be proficient at governing..." [op cit (Michael D'Antonio)]
Who in America does HAS enough going for them, to understand this:
1. Vice President Pence?
2. The Congressional leadership?
3. The [under-appreciated!] American working man and woman?
4. High school students?
5. Six year olds?
6. Trump supporters?
7. DJT himself?
All of the above, I think.
5
A wag in comments at WaPo called the tape an episode of The Dope-ranos.
6
As long as we're on a gangster role, I'll go back to Jimmy Cagney, who famously said, "You dirty rat. You'll never take me alive."
In the present day 'remake' we've got con man in chief, well documented liar, Donald Trump, in the starring role. Thing is, he's both the "dirty rat" and the one protesting "no collusion", "fake news", etc. In other words, 'you'll never take me alive... my base and spineless republicans insulate me.'
Personally I don't care how Trump goes. Just so it's ASAP. And that we never have to see or hear from him again. He can tweet from some remote island or jungle.
In other words, "What DeNiro said!"
8
Thanks for supporting the mob family we have in the White House Ms. Dowd. You had a choice to support an intelligent candidate or a crotch grabbing idiot who is making America the laughing stock of the World.
16
Can we acknowledge that Trump could not have been a product of any other cultural environment than New York City.
Can we also acknowledge that the perspective of New York City that the rest of the country is populated by rubes is apparently accurate.
Can we also acknowledge that Maureen's critique of Trump is all well and good, but if this is what she really thinks of him, then why did she work so hard to destroy Hillary's Presidential campaign?
19
We must be watching a different movie. I see 4.1% GDP growth, S&P earnings up 50% over the last 2 years, ISIS defeated, a stunning reduction in racial tensions (Ferguson and Baltimore riots a thing of the past), a President negotiating for American blue collar workers with China and the EU and using our enormous leverage. I also see the chicken little democrats telling us that ...at some point in the future...the sky will fall down and this will all end in disaster. The "disaster" is happening in reverse.
7
Racial tensions are not "a thing of the past." Unless, of course, you're living in DT Fantasyland. Cops still kill unarmed black people at alarming rates. The only jobs DT saved were a handful of steel workers. Coal jobs aren't coming back. Average wages are not rising, regardless of 4% growth and amazing productivity on the part of American workers. The chicken little is DT who's been bad mouthing America since day one with fantasies of crime riddled neighborhoods, failing schools, and besieged white people. On top of that, he spits on America's institutions and all democracies worldwide when he sidles up to Putin et al. He's a stain on the America that we all love.
17
It's just a credit card binge to finesse the next election to me.
6
The long term Republican project of sabotaging the U. S. educational system has paid off handsomely. Less critical thinking, less credible elections.
13
It's true that the Don's capture of America is for private financial gain, and protection from prosecution. Very crooked. However, Dowd's analogy disrespects mobsters. It takes more than lusting after vendettas and loose women to be a successful Don. Trump couldn't even organize the opening of his big casino! He was too lazy to make sure the slot machines worked. A mobster is a businessman running a filthy business-- successfully and discreetly. No way Trump fits. For example, he's too low-life to pay his lawyers' bills, so goes on the legal blacklist, so has to hire the low end of the phone book. And then, he's surprised when the latter gets caught, and turns State's Witness. No Corleone worthy of the name would hire Trump, not even to shine shoes.
10
All this talk about lawyers flipping gives us hope that Peter C. Wright, the Dow Chemical lawyer Trump nominated to the EPA, will change his stripes, too.
Who knew lawyers had a center?
1
I’m still waiting for the “do you think I’m a funny guy” scene.
But unlike the original movie, in the pathetic Trump saga the end titles can’t come soon enough.
3
This "gangster" angle is clever but does not ring true. Trump does have a macho sensibility which may be exacerbated by unrelenting attacks, ridicule, hyperbole, speculation, supposition, invention, groundless theory, impeachment-threatening, a media refusing to acknowledge his accomplishments early-on...and still we wait wait wait for the Russian collusion story to come to fruition--"where's the beef?" I am not saying there wasn't any "collusion" but where is the evidence, already?
We saw the face of a gangster--and a rep from the left--when we watched De Niro's outburst on award night. Rich guys like these "goodfellas" don't have to worry so much about their wallets but ordinary people do--and they see a president who is a true activist for their good, dumb tweets notwithstanding..
2
@Marcia Stephens... In a little over a year the Mueller investigation has resulted in over 2O indictments and guilty pleas. The Benghazi investigation went on for 2.5 years with absolutely no indictments nor guilty pleas. Just be patient and Robert Mueller III will provide you with more evidence than you will know what to do with.
13
Donnie "Loose Lips" Trump wanted to be a Mobster, but the Mafia wouldn't have him.
Trump blabs too much and can't keep his story straight. Too much in love with the limelight, publicity hungry. Too much back tracking and flip flops. Doesn't keep his word.
And Trump couldn't even keep a casino from going bankrupt.
Even with his dad buying millions in chips to help out.
So Trump pretends he's a Don.
Likes to threaten people. Talk big, have them fear him.
Has his Cabinet kiss his ring, compliments and praise abound.
Expects people to jump and do his bidding. To hang on his every word.
Doesn't like it when the courts and cops get in his way - he'll fire the lot of them.
And a little vigorish to grease the palm. Trump pockets money all the time, what with the constant travel to one of his clubs, where the Trump Organization (him) makes a tidy profit from all the Secret Service expenditures. Not to mention the D.C. hotel business, flush with visitors seeking Trump's favor.
Plus, the 2020 Campaign. A constant stream of cash into Trump coffers. Plenty to pay for fixers, uh, lawyers.
Win-Win.
Vote Democratic on November 6th.
Every seat, every office.
Changing Congress is our best hope.
Vote.
6
All very nice, but let’s not forget Maureen writing in 2016 that Trump and Hilliary were equally bad because of the emails. Oops!
30
America will need a long soapy bath after Trump leaves office to to cleanse the filth, deception and horrible moral choices he has made while in Washington. This has been perhaps with possibly the exception of Warren Harding the most disturbing year and a half in American politics of the 20th and 21st Century. Trump makes Nixon look half plausible as clean.
20
Maureen, come on now, you know like everyone else there is no such thing as “organized crime”.
Truth is that cornering De Niro at a party to ask him on his feelings regarding Trump’s “mob” like behavior, while perhaps making for an interesting contribution, isn’t that much of a stretch. De Niro was “mob-like” vocal long before election day and in my opinion he nailed it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFpFDyKeqyA
This should have been a commercial run in districts that were bound to vote red. He said it better than any commentator, pundit or elected official could have. “He doesn’t do his homework” strikes me the most. Second only to the line, “If you care about your future, vote for it!”
Trump is a work in progress so to speak. He has graduated from enjoying the company of mob like figures who dream of grandeur and who think they’re larger than life to wooing tyrant rulers that in their own worlds have achieved grandeur and who to their people are larger than life. Keeping adding LEGO blocks to the pile that builds itself and it is easy to see where this is all going. When you put up a building you take on the Mob’s supremes. When you become a NY business mogul you take on NY’s supremes. When you get on TV with a hit show you take on Hollywood supremes. When you make it into the White House, you take on the World’s Supremes.
De Niro nailed it precisely.
7
My son is belatedly watching/catching up with the popular TV series, the Sopranos. he finds eerie similarities. Its comical he says because they (the mob) is so stupid. Highly reactionary, highly emotional, highly vengeful, the characters have no foresight. Each character in Trump's story seems to be endowed with short sightedness, symbolic of these times where instant gratification is synonymous with our impatience intolerance of all things not to our tastes or liking.
9
Finally MD is honing in on Trump's appeal .... his tough guy Queens-speak language learned at his father's job sites in the 50s and 60s. This has always appealed to the working class, because he talks like what he is, a guy from Queens, and rich guy wannabe. The gangster movies primed the pump for a guy like Trump, and he just walked into the role. Crazy huh?
5
Trump is an X-ray. He is an X-ray of the evangelicals that profess religious belief but swear by the most immoral president in American history. He is an X-ray of the rotten core (heart) of the Republican party, with its southern strategy, its pseudo-populism and its venal culture. He is an X-ray of a flawed constitution that has enabled a minority to rule the country in 12 out of the past 18 years, a constitution that licenses people to purchase guns as if they constituted a militia. He is X-ray of the pervasive ignorance that challenges Darwin, global warming etc etc under the rubric of "fake news". He is the issuer of spectacles that enhances skin color, religion, and ethnicity. He is the avatar of sexism and misogyny, He is the photoshop of post-modern times.
15
Mobsters are big on family. While they destroy the lives of other families, they choke up and tears come to their eyes when they talk about their own. Mobsters are vicious, cruel, sadistic and nauseatingly sentimental at the same time.
Trump is big on families too – but, again, only his own. Trump's love of family doesn't stop Trump forsaking and abandoning his wives and committing adultery when he thinks he can get away with it. Trump is vicious, cruel, sadistic and nauseatingly sentimental at the same time.
The GOP is big on families unless they're poor, or black or don't confirm to the traditional model. The GOP is vicious, cruel, sadistic and nauseatingly sentimental at the same time.
Yes, sirree! Americans sure love their families. It's the American way.
8
A huge "recommend" to some my fellow commenters. I thought I was the only one left who reads Ms Dowd's articles and wants to scream ""You voted for him!!" Where's the column where Dowd admits she was wrong about both Trump and Hillary?
All her hand-wringing at this point about Trump's behavior is meaningless. The most important thing we need to do is make sure that Democrats show up to vote in large enough numbers to regain control of one or both of the houses of Congress. No more waffling on that issue from Dowd and others like her. Get out there and support the Dems. "Don't boo; vote!"
12
The operative word here is OLD. Trump is old, thinks old and styles himself old. OLD as in MAGA a time in his mind which he has never left.
He styles himself in the old 1970's manhood of swinger about town and the old style of movie fiction mob boss.
He has old thinking. He still thinks racism and discrimination are the way to go, nuclear is a 'big deal' and the sherif gets to walk down main street shooting (winning!) everyone.
He should have never left his tower digs of Vegas glitz from the 1970's which he still has to tell everyone is the best.
This is why he was so appealing to the old white men of America.
It was good in the old days. Let's get back there asap. An old white man with dying dreams of days gone by which he sold rather well. Now exposed and not looking as good as it did.
13
Yes, Mafia through and through. Since long ago. Ok now that we know that, then what does this say about the Republicans in Congress? Why are they so afraid of Trump and his mob? Why do they act beholden to this mobster who got himself elected President? What does “this mob” have on Ryan, McConnell, Nunes....etc.? Remember Nunes’s about face? Wonder what was whispered in his ear?
Is the whole government a big mafia? And, what does this say about this Boss’ diehard admirers who would vote for him again even if he were a murderer? Putin has diehard supporters too. It is amusing, not really, to compare this crisis to some good movies about the Mafia but has our country been turned into a classic mafia-style dictatorship?
8
“As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.”
Ever since Fred Trump, has there ever been a twiggish Trump who was not severely bent?
Do severely bent trees bear bent fruit?
3
America has always been fascinated by mob figures. God Father, Good Fellas, Soprano and any number of such movies. It is no surprise they are now fascinated by the man in the White House. The only difference current status affects the whole country and indeed the world unlike the movies which affected a minuscule population.
3
Why is this the first (and only) time I’ve read in the NYT that Michael Cohen has information about Trump’s knowledge of the meeting with Russians at Trump Tower? That’s an explosive story, covered in some fashion many other places (beyond CNN). Would be interesting to hear why the NYT hasn’t covered this as news.
5
And you helped to elect him.
17
The mafia wanted nothing to do with Comrade Trump because he is a man without honor & completely untrustworthy. The REAL DONS never victimized children. Comrade Trump always goes after women & children who are desperate. They are too weak to fight back. The torment he inflicted on the refugees & their young babies, children & teens will be noted in US and World History as the dark, inhumane crime against humanity that defines the very essence of Comrade Trump and his pathetic Administration run by moral cowards.
History will reflect Comrade Trump's cowardice & cruelty. His legacy will never be more than that. Comrade Trump & his family have indelibly stained the Oval Office, and America.
LOCK THEM UP!
13
Wonder how the mobsters feel when they are being compared to Trump?
6
Republicans love the job Trump is doing — 88% of them according to recent polls. Keep that in mind, folks. It’s akin, in mob violence terms, to Trump wearing a Kevlar body suit.
2
Republican systematic voter suppression along with Russian help put Crime Boss, Donald Trump into the White House. Ivanka, Jared Kushner, Donald Jr., are all active members of the Trump crime family that now sees the US government as an extension of the Trump empire.
The Cohen tapes revealed that ATT, Novartis and other corporations payed large sums of money to a shadow company for that went to Trump's pocket. That is just one part of the fetid Trumpian world filled with hush money payoffs to porn stars, laundered money coming from Russia again via Cohen's shadow company.
Robert Mueller has taken on the role of Elliot Ness. This tangled criminal web is Trump's lifestyle and it now wraps itself around the entire Republican Party. The GOP leadership response: "This investigation needs to end, lets move on". The GOP has no respect for the rule of law or the reputation of the United States of America. Filling the pockets of the super-rich is their only concern.
Al Capone was tried and found guilty of tax fraud. Where indeed are Trump's tax returns?
6
Trump is just a bad actor. He thinks he is a leading man but he can’t win an Oscar because he treats the judges with disdain. We can change this America. If we’re mad and don’t want to take it anymore we need to vote in Democrats and Independents in November. If the Republicans win back the House in November we must accept the fact that mobster Don has a lot of support from his family.
1
"“MAGA, Mobsters Are Governing America.”"
The best acronym yet, even better than Socrates's "the party of Greed Over People."
Seriously, Trump's accountant can cause a lot more damage than Al Capone's, because Capone was virtually a sole, lonely jailbird, while Trump's scandals extend to his family, his friends, Russia, Deutsche Bank, Adelson, Koch, Qatar and who knows whom and what else.
God save the United States of America = God save Mueller.
6
Great piece of writing with a cool picture of De Niro to boot.
But you do a disservice to the Mafia by comparing trump to the likes of them.
That Trump is a mob boss has been obvious to anyone paying attention since 2015 and before.
2
Yes, Ms. Dowd, and don't ever forget the role you played in getting trump elected. We won't!! By the way, have you ever publicly admitted it? That's the least you can do.
29
So sad...…..where will it all end?
Sometimes I cheat and look at the last chapter of a book I'm reading. Wish I could do that with this horrible president.
3
No one is above the law. Perjury, collusion, campaign finance corruption, obstruction. Vote
6
This is the Russian Badfellas who have settled in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. Thanks Maureen for a great article.
5
Ms Dowd writes "Trump is drawn to people who know how to dominate a room and exaggerated displays of macho." Trump isn't the only one with this weakness - the columnist herself showed far more respect for Trump in 2016 than she did for Hillary Clinton. How could she elevate a man who thought nothing of defrauding people with scams like "Trump University," who had a history of not paying his contractors, who used name-calling and cheap slogans as a substitute for thoughtful programs that might indeed do something to help America? It's hard to forget her put-downs of "Barry" and Hillary. Now even her condemnations of Trump are mixed with admiration, at the "Don" who could somehow pull this off, lying all the way to the Oval office.
17
@St. Paulite, Trump has to be THE guy to dominate a room with exaggerated displays of machismo.
On the day Maureen Dowd admits that whatever Hillary Clinton's faults may have been, she could not possibly have been a worse president than Donald Trump is, then I will have more respect for Dowd. Is very interesting that so many of her current columns are critiques of Donald Trump, but not once have we heard her regret her campaigns against Hillary Clinton.
16
This is a typical Dowd Sunday stir-up and it is best put into perspective by reading the comment offered by Gemli.
After living through months and months of Trump mayhem, I have grown calluses. I grow bored hearing about him which is what I am sure he and the Republican Party wants.
The point now is how to keep the American voters focused on this deplorable man until the Fall elections. Boredom is setting in.
11
I grew up in NYC and everyone knew Trump was a buffoon and a cheat. It was astounding to me that so many people fell for his "I am a very successful businessman, like on the Apprentice," schtick. He lied continuously. Bullied the different and his arch enemy the Press. Picked fights with Senator McCain and a Gold Star family! His list of lies, mistakes, and other trash is just too long for this venue. The GOP should not have accepted him to run on their ticket. We have both Trump and the GOP to thank for our current hapless predicament --- Donald J. Chaos & Co. in the White House.
6
From Jersey, we watched his antics as well. The closer you get to Atlantic City, the more stories you’ll hear about cheated contractors. I’m surprised that farmers in the south and west fell for his con. His cheating has been on display for decades.
7
This is so reminescent of so many Mafia movies in which the mob accountant is scheduled to testify, when he is suddenly struck by lightening or accidentally falls into a garbage truck. Hope Allen Weisselberg stays away from rooftops.
4
Exactly!
He “does not believe that anyone is honest. He doesn’t believe that your motivations have anything to do with right and wrong and public service. It’s all about self-interest and a war of all against all.”
He’s just a normal guy, like everybody else. Ugh
In any* movie he would be the bad guy.
Vote! And take two friends.
Throw an after party (only voters invited).
Buy a drink or a cookie for a stranger that voted.
Max the vote - most of us (Americans) support stronger gun safety, social security, Medicare, good schools, safe streets, fair wages, clean air and water, and detest corrupt politicians.
Make America great again? Stop watching network “news” and read a newspaper (or a mystery book)
Use your brain.
*super hero movie (any), check
Bond, check
Muppets go to DC, check
Click-flick, check, check, and check.
Well as we all know, mob bosses eventually get taken out or down, by one of their own.
7
The Trump administration reminds me more of a spy ring.
2
Russians, porn stars, money laundering and a cast of characters right out of a Fellini movie. The takeover of the USA by Trump and his gang was inevitable given that the USA has been marinating in hate radio, wacko Christianity, and Fox News for thirty years. The effect upon the American psyche produced a bipolar country that was easy to influence through social media propaganda. How this horror story ends is yet unknown but the damage done to the fabric of American life may take years to heal.
7
In her “Atlantic Magazine” interview with Donald Trump Jr. (July 13, 2017), Molly Ball asked Junior about his childhood relationship with his dad. Junior responded: His father would send him off to school with a hug each morning and advise him “No smoking, no drinking, no drugs, usually followed with ‘Don’t trust anyone’.”
Is this a scene to warm the cockles of your heart or what?
In “Badfellas” Alec Baldwin could play Trump, but what child actor has the chops to play Don Junior?
5
One more lawyer to go.
As Trump wheels out and discards attorneys such as John Dowd, Michael Cohen and Rudy Giuliani, he still has one left up his sleeve.
Expect George H. Ross, executive VP and senior counsel of the Trump Organization, to make his mark within the next few months.
Mob-guys get the girls that always understands that sex acts are subsidized in real cash, transactional-like. No muss, no fuss. The First Lady is an Eastern European beauty that grew up in a culture where it was automatic that pretty girls got ahead by acting and strutting their stuff. It was normal and accepted that beauty was more lucrative than brains. The "Red Sparrow" syndrome was the height of ambition in Eastern Europe. The mob-culture ethics included a special category of beautiful women that traded sexual-friendship to lifestyle subsidies. We're all living the Godfather movie and watching Eastern European fowls flit around in spiked heels. It is normal.
7
A choice between a thief/liar/narcissist and a religious zealot (see Frank Bruni today), if the former goes away (however)? The United States is in deep deep trouble.
4
This article is a disservice to the mafia.
4
On November 6, the American People will settle all the family business with Don the Con.
5
I'm so jealous that you get invited to such swanky parties! And I'm sure the rest of Trump's America is too.
4
Heard Giuliani just admitted Trump knew, in advance, about the Russian meeting that involved Jr. et. al.. Rudy has warned Cohen to keep his mouth shut because Cohen's disclosures are violating attorney client privilege. In order to violate the privilege the statements by the attorney would need to be TRUE! Thanks Rudy!
PROSECUTE RUSSIAGATE!
3
Genovese and Gambino wouldn’t have invited Trump for Sunday dinner in their homes. They might have taken him for a beautiful night ride in the country.
5
Trump "does not believe that anyone is honest. He doesn’t believe that your motivations have anything to do with right and wrong and public service. It’s all about self-interest and a war of all against all. "
An old bit of wisdom (spoken by an Afghan village leader in an episode of The Unit), holds, "A liar thinks all men are liars, and a coward thinks all men are cowards." With regard to Trump, one could add, "a corrupt man thinks all men are corrupt." Trump cannot imagine that Robert Meuller, Rod Rosenstein, and myriad journalists are just doing their jobs honestly and honorably, because these virtues do not exist in his world.
10
Ok Maureen, let's get down to business. The real issues here to write about are the elections. Specifically how are the votes going to be cast (paper or hackable computer ballot), who is going to be allowed to vote (call out which state attorney generals are suppressing voter rolls) and how are the votes going to be counted. We have hard proof that elections deem subjective results. In our lifetime we have seen history rob the people of 2 presidents. We the people need to demand safe and foolproof measures at the voting polls. You are a great writer, call on your skills to inform as well as entertain the public with hard core facts. Please please please use your soapbox and the ever influential NYT podium to get these messages across to our country. It's time to let the people speak the language of Democracy. Vote the thugs out like our lives depends on it.
11
The US has something worse that a third world political system. A outdated electoral college and gerrymandering for instance!!!!
11
Trump likes to use his Twitter account as a machine gun, doing away with his advisories, ambush style, in the middle of the night. All people in the mob business know they are one slip away from being whacked, look at the Republican Congress, “ please don’t twitter me Godfather “. Trump is the boss now but as in all mobster movies, everyone gets whacked eventually.
8
"Ruled by gangsters:" True, but by stupid, childish gangsters, with no patriotism, just greed and ego. No coherent policy. No consistent policy. True facts are not relevant. The leader says, don't believe what you see, that is not what is happening. Just believe me (even though I told you, literally, thousands of lies since I became your leader and demonstrated vividly that I have absolutely no moral compass.
Please, Trump supporters, open your eyes, think. At least believe some of what you see. Be patriotic. Help us begin to recover. Please. we need to come together.
6
He’s your creation, New York. Personally, I like a colorful president. Can you imagine how bored we’d all be if Hillary won?
2
New Yorkers knew better than to vote for him.
1
Sheesh ... Michael Cohen can help his case and his country by providing everything he has about the "prez". Guilliani says that Michael will be disbarred if he violates atty/client privacy ... as if he won't, anyway, because of his other illegal, immoral, unethical shenanegans. He might as well try to go down swinging, with a bit of "dignity" gained from helping his country in a constructive way.
4
Unlike the results of the ”gang who couldn’t shoot straight”, we will be suffering the ramifications of this Teflon president for decades to come.
1
He may have modeled his squint on Clint Eastwood's, but it turned out more like Sidney Greenstreet's. A man convinced that he is an intimidating Class Act. We could use a Bogart to put him in his place.
2
Trump once thought of going to film school? I truly wished that had happened. He'd have made movies that would make Ed Wood seem like Stanley Kubrick. But let's face it: the only creativity he shows is in the daily lies he spews, and even these are flimsy and tedious. His Gong Show administration, hopefully, will be over soon, and then we'll have a religious nut to worry about next, Pence coming down the mountain with Ten Commandments and then some.
8
Maureen Dowd- she has seen the light at last. Too bad she slept all thru 2015 and 2016 on this issue. She was wide awake, however, when it came to knifing hrc. The Clintons had issues and nominating hrc was a mistake, but she has a brain in her head and she is not a wanna-be mobster.
10
Over 3million people voted for Hillary and not because we loved her. Most of us knew that this mobster bulleying president was a much worse choice than HRC!
It sickens me to think that you and much of the media were focused on Hillary's foibles.
Oh, those emails!!!
Yes, Hillary was far from a perfect candidate but DT showed us who he was the minute he came down the escalator! Trump's constant bulleying of a NY Times reporter, a gold star family, McCain, women and especially "crooked Hillary" were unacceptable to most of us. No, it hasn't stopped!!!
Now you and some of the media are telling us what most of us knew on day one of Trump's campaign. He will never change but I am afraid we are normalizing this insanity because it happens on a daily basis.
Shame on all of us if we don't halt this madness.
On Nov 6th we'll get a chance to do just that!
11
OK, Cohen is driving a getaway car for himself and other people who were once blindly loyal to "the Don".
With this column, it is clear that Mo is sitting in the passenger seat.
1
Manchild. Barbarian. Aspiring mafia don. Racist. Homophobe. All these epithets capture a piece of the authentic Donald J. Trump. But however you assemble these jagged shards to produce a surrealist version of the "Picture of Dorian Grey," the conclusion inevitably follows that he does not belong in public without a keeper who can restrain his impulse to wreck any symbol of civilization he encounters.
A man who divides humanity into enemies and sycophants, along with a few masters of the universe whom he envies, lacks the empathy and judgment to interact with others on an adult level. His negotiations with foreign leaders confirm this conclusion. Trump's record so far demonstrates that he identifies only with autocrats, who share his primitive, schoolyard-bully conception of leadership.
None of the above should astonish anyone who has observed the president since that infamous day on which he descended the escalator at Trump Tower and shunted America off onto a very different trajectory from the one plotted by Mr. Obama during the previous eight years. He lacks the discipline and guile to conceal his real character, which he openly displayed during that initial speech in July, 2015.
Dowd's intended expose, therefore, appears a little late in the day, long after all the other children had concluded that Donald runs with scissors and does not play well with others. Instead of obsessing over Hillary's e-mails, she should have focused on the real monster in the room.
12
Trump is wearing down whatever good will he had with the American people and the rest of the world. He is fallible and vulnerable. The first signs that he is starting to crumble are seen in Manafort and Cohen. His uneducated, xenophobic base sticks with him but even they at some point will be forced to admit that this guy needs to go.
3
I have asked evangelicals, repeatedly, why they like Trump. He flies in the face of everything they purportedly stand for. He hates women, he hates his wife. He lies. He cheats. He's a bully. He is anathema to everything evangelicals bend a knee for on Sunday. Yet they continue to dote on him. Why?
Evangelicals can you help me understand? Please. So far none have. Thus, one must conclude that what I say is true, since silence in the face of an opportunity to respond is an admission.
2
@Jip They'll say he was sent by God to give them the Supreme Court Justices they want and repeal Roe v. Wade. They'll say he is not Hilary Clinton.
3
this is not news...if you have been watching trump's demeanor, his walk, his hand gestures, how he sits, etc., and if you have been reading about his history, it is obvious that his models have been drawn from the mob or depictions of the mob (Tony Soprano et al).
His behavior at rallies is right out of Joe Pesci's performances in Scorsese's films--exaggerated bluster, smirks, hand gestures, obscenities. His is a total confection of media representation.
His voters are suckers.
12
Oh! Hush!
The difference between Trump and mobsters is that Trump is out in the open where he can be had if he has violated the law. He has the best law enforcement agency in the world after him. And the stakes are much higher than for a mobster. He seems to have avoided violations of the law so far which makes me wonder if he really ever has violated any laws. Mobsters will lie for each other if it means no jail time or their accusers have no case that seems likely to nail them. But Trump is the President of the USA, not a common mobster and he has a slew of people who can take him down: The electorate, Robert Mueller and Congress, if they so decide.
Hey everyone wonder if Trump could sit through the movie "Barbershop" and survive.
Al Capone, America's most infamous mobster, was finally brought down by the Feds for income tax evasion.
Always follow the money.
4
Whew! Did Ms Dowd notice in her interviews with Trump before and during the election that he was an actual crime boss? She got Hillary right just because she was a legacy wife, whose husband had once served in very high profile elected offices. (In Arkansas she appeared to be working for the Firm, and if she and Bill had a political partnership, she was the one who dropped the ball on healthcare in 1992.) And George W. was the worst kind of legacy--idiot son becomes President.
G. W. drank his way through Yale; did Trump cheat his way thru Penn? For going to a business school, he appears to know nothing about economics, be it Obamacare, tax cuts, or tariffs. But he does know how to cheat. I would lay odds that instead of confronting Putin, he actually asked him how he was going to help him in the mid-term elections. And if they funneled money thru the NRA in the last election, not just Trump, but Gowdy, Gohmert, Nunes, McConnell and the rest of them would all be affected. And their voters probably wouldn't mind; when it comes to guns, they are "stand your ground" racists. (85% of Americans favor tighter gun laws, but the NRA has a lock-step hold on Republicans)
Taking campaign donations from a foreign entity/government is very much against the law. The real problem may have been, that after ABSCAM, our Republican FBI agents were too cowed to enforce the law. The Mercer C. A. operation was also foreign; fb was tricked or were trying hard to look the other way?
5
NY is full of guys like Trump. The Godfather worshipers who brag they got that coveted table at Rao's or proudly proclaim their neighbor is 'connected'. Worse, it's full of macho numbskulls like Cohen who've been working some 'angle' for years and getting away with it so, it must be ok. And it's full of folks willingly enabling shady people and the deals they do because in some instances it's perfectly legal like, real estate agents selling multi million dollar condos to money laundering dirt bags. It's all part of the NY brew and tolerated because you know, New York is expensive and you gotta do whacha gotta do to make a living. Right.
1
How ridiculously absurd is it that a mobster wanna be and ex mobster prosecutor are now running the White House. Top that off with an over the top evangelical Christian as the second in charge and the whole picture gets about as insane as can be. Are we really so careless in this country that we can allow the likes of these thugs to have ultimate control? Unbelievably crazy if you ask me.
4
Dowd goes from Trump fan and Clinton / Obama basher to a kind of reluctant critic of Trump. And even in the critical pieces it is easy to see the admiration of Trump between the lines. And the phony Michael Cohen recant with its admission of lying seems like she can't help herself. She loves to help Trump. Old habits die hard.
9
Things that seem obvious to me:
The ‘base’: the crackpot white evangelical church; gun worshippers; oil/chemical sector; the “sovereign citizen” libertarian; white supremacists; ill educated/ illiterate/ ignorant/ angry whites; nativists; ‘conservatives’ who are radically destructive; ‘family values’ proponents whose politics are an expression of their cruelty, especially toward children. Add sleaze, hypocrisy and corruption and you have the GOP base, representing all that is weak and regressive about America.
This didn’t just happen; the present incarnation of the GOP is a project but whose? For the answer, look at what they do: tax, public education and government busting, channeling wealth offshore away from the people.
In this way the GOP offers offers useful fools by the million to whom government is reality TV with The Leader, a floundering buffoon propelled by the vacuum of an empty mind, low rodent cunning and a foul mouth. All he represents is money without national affiliation or loyalty. The Russians found him there, offshore, where their money flowed together in the same laundry.
Putin, on the other hand, plays out his national interests with laser focus on our point of vulnerability and the GOP becomes the realisation of McCarthy’s vision, a body infested, a cosmic joke on America. Hello Maria Butina.
So it's more than Trump: it’s time to break the Republican Party with the weight of a clear majority. It can be done. The numbers are there.
4
The public loves mobsters, men outside the law. If Anthony, "Tony Pro," PROVENZANO, or Paul VARIO were to suddenly be reincarnated and appeared in Cipriani's, fancy UES restaurant, you would see diners getting up from their tables and lining up for autographs and "selfies!" Abe Rosenthal, father of the present editor, had a favorite saloon which was located in Ozone Park , Queens called Pep Mcguire's, which is where I was introduced to him 1 night, along with a "copain,"Dick Dougherty, by Jimmy Breslin whose mayoral campaign I was a volunteer for in 1969. Rosenthal, Dougherty loved the ambiance of that restaurant because it was frequented by the mob. So, to say that Trump is the mobster in chief is not an insult, but a compliment to his supporters! Where is your sense of humor, Ms Dowd? "Entre parentheses," you should have scolded De Niro for speaking about the President so disrespectfully. Ironical that De Niro, smallish in stature, never served in the military during VN conflict, attended only private schools thanks to his well off parents, likes to play the tough guy even off the screen, when he is anything but!
I still partially blame you, Maureen, and your journalistic ilk, for the creature that now inhabits the White House. You trashed Obama, you trashed Clinton, you put doubts in the minds of enough progressives who then voted for Sanders. You need to remember those columns with shame.
16
I have been a New York Times reader for years and my deceased father also read it while living in the New York City area. Although, it is difficult at times to take this newspaper seriously when you publish articles such as this. This paper has a world class reputation so why on earth would you publish a piece associating President Trump with the mafia? This is so ridiculous and is an insult to the intelligence of your New York Times readers. I did a double take to make sure I was not reading some supermarket tabloid. I was not.
You now have stooped to a new low and it is so disappointing. Please return to reporting the news that is worthy of your fine reputation. There is so much newsworthy reporting that people want and need to know. Thank you.
@WPLMMT
Whoah there!!
It's been well-known in NYC that he and his father worked with mobsters, and that trump was untrustworthy.
One of the more clear example is when he tore down the Bonwit Teller building on 5th Avenue, and used mob haulers to take the debris to New Jersey and dump it on the side of roads instead of taking it to the dumps and paying a fee.
That may seem innocuous to you, but not if it happened on the road you lived on. There are many mob stories associated with trump and his casinos, money laundering for one.
3
Donald Trump is a generic wannabe. He has no idea who he is or what he believes. These characteristics are apparent every day that he is pretending to be president while conning his supporters into thinking he is their savior. His pathetic life as a corrupt real estate developer with multiple failures and only an undergraduate degree in real estate has provided him with little knowledge about the real world other than how he can use others to serve his need to feel important. He is a pathetic, needy man who simply wants to be someone who is powerful and adored without the requisite intelligence or experience; someone who bullies others because it makes him feel important. He may act like a mobster but he is not that smart. Robert Mueller, a man who is the complete opposite of Trump will bring him down. Elliot Ness vs. Al Capone redux.
4
So now it's Trump as Mafia.
Each week Ms. Dowd reaches for a new cutesy way (for want of a better word) to outdo her Times colleagues, the Hollywood and theater crowds, the Democrats, the left wing media (which means practically all of the media), and the other usual suspects, in disdain for President Trump. Of course it scores points for Ms. Dowd with the choir. But like a parent who keeps yelling at a child, after a while, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, non-stop, it basically becomes a yada-yada-yada vanity piece for Ms Dowd.
So where are we. Ms. Dowd should align her money with her mouth. She should petition the Justice Department to indict President Trump and anyone else it can snare into the net under RICO. Her column invokes the magic word "Russian," which is the opening for Robert Mueller to get into the act. As a fallback, at the least Ms. Dowd should importune her Hollywood friends to make a new Godfather movie. Except the central Godfather character would not be Don Corleone but Don Donald Trump. She can even get a credit on the movie as having originated the idea for the script.
Oh Maureen, calm down. It could be worse. We could have Hillary....
2
Dowd could have investigated Trump and reported to NYT readers most of what's in today's column 3 years ago. Just like the whole of the NYT, save for Paul Krugman, she did not do so. So sad.
16
Tired of all the psycho drama and analysis. The bugger’s gotta go. He’s a rotten apple, and needs to be tossed before he spoils any more of our precious republic. Vote blue like your life and country depends on it, it does.
5
More like "the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight"
Want to curry favor with your crime boss?
Give him something he can't get for himself.
Vito Corleone? Custom undertaking for the machine-gunned corpse of his son.
Trump? Articles of impeachment filed against Rosenstein.
Trump turned that swamp into a cesspool and we're all downwind.
4
Maureen, I want to note a correction: I believe the taped conversation between Trump and Cohen was an in-person meeting, not a telephone call.
1
Mobsters go to church and donn’t play golf on Sunday’s. Please stop disparaging them.
2
We, the People, continue under the direct Control and "Leadership"of
"President" Donald Trump...a diagnosable Sociopathic Personality Disorder,
(Want a Symptom List.....starting with free-floating, unbridled Lying and
Fabrication?) Trump is beyond Treatment; we, the People are Sick.
1
Maureen-
You forgot to mention that like Tony Soprano, Trump campaigned by saying his real business was Waste Management , which braggingly, he said gave him the experience for cleaning the swamp.
Along the Capo culture, the people he aligns himself to are like minded psychopaths who whack people with impunity: Putin, Duterte, Netanyahu. In at least two cases, the whackers have been coming to his defense along with their lieutenants: Putin and his thuggish soldiers, the latest Maria Buttina and in Nethanyahu’s case Alan Dershowitz. Putin claims innocence from the poison killings in the U.K. Netanyahu claims those killed when he pompously accepted Trump’s gift of Jerusalem and claimed that the dozens killed “were asking for it”. Duterte claims drug addicts deserve killing. Can’t make this stuff up Pity the US democratic system from the three pronged attack by the aforementioned Capos BTW- the swamp is full of Trump’s lieutenants and the regulations he’s decimated
1
Da ‘Don’, is The Don. Surprised?
Trump is the Republican Party.
He sits on top of the pile. We know what the pile is made of.
We will need a revolution like Bernie talked about to get our country back from these crooked ,corrupt mobster wannabes.
2
And you trashed his opponent and voted for this clown. Nice.
10
As long as the economy SEEMS to do well, Trump will boast. But growth does not mean growth for all. The rich get richer, the others manage not to sink, or do, slowly or not. Make America Great Again? When was America Great? 1929? 1945? Trump never answered that question. If he did, please, please tell me.
3
" Rat pack air ". Madam, you disparage Rats. Better than the Clintons, I suppose. What, exactly, FINALLY clued you in ???
9
.... and 40% of Americans are OK with a mobster for president.
What does that tell you?
6
Donald John Trump, Sr. and sons prancing and prissy effete pretending to be macho tough guys are really mostly tweeting and speaking bloviating buffoons.
The Outfit is the name that my South Side Chicago La Costra Nostra aka Mafia prefers. Al Capione's public mob life was an Outfit aberration. From Paul " The Waiter" Ricca to Anthony "Joe Batters aka Big Tuna" Accardo to Sam "Momo" Giancana and beyond The Outfit has avoided publicity and duplicity. Which is why The Outfit ran Las Vegas and Cuba for the Commission.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is the real American Russian gangster godfather. Putin's foes end up in hospitals, mental institutions, prisons, urns and coffins with Putin smirking and smiling while proclaiming his innocence. No one ever suffered any of these fates from a Trump tweet or speech. And Trump barks and snarls instead of smiling and smirking.
4
You're saying Donnie's a WISE GUY ? Forget about it ! He is a dumb guy, a wannabe, a good for nothing ! He's a nobody! Ask Vladi. He just ate him for dinner.
6
Brilliant column Ms. Dowd...
1
Trump acting like a mobster is an insult to all made guys !!
1
He is not The Don, Putin is!
He is getting all his briefings from Putin, that is why he brushes away his own intelligence briefings...who needs CIA, FBI and the rest if he gets FSB, GRU and straight orders from The Don himself.
What do you think they discuss in these private best buddy meetings, little chit chats about the weather or next bullet points for our impostor-in- chief.
Under Putin supervision he consolidates relations with all Putin's favorites, will probably try to drag Italy out of EU, he is yet to invite Viktor Orbán Hungarian PM, Czech President Milos Zeman not to forget Poland and all the illiberal parties in government in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.
Europe is in complete disarray and turmoil changing as we speak, and Don Putin keeps very close track on his potential coalition including our Vassal-in -Chief.
Putin has a Plan A, and everyone else is just following.
Yikes!!!
3
Tired of all the psycho drama and analysis. The bugger’s gotta go. He is a rotten apple and needs to be tossed before he ruins any more of our precious republic. Vote blue like your life and country depends on it, it does.
4
Well, Maureen, you bashed Hillary so frequently during the last election that this editorial, like so many others you've written since the last election is too little too late. You helped get us to this place. If you knew Trump was this bad, and you certainly should have, you shouldn't have written so many admiring op eds prior to the election. SHAME ON YOU!!!
14
Very clever, maureen. But where's the new insight? Where's the laugh line or the clever observation? Tacking together a bunch of other journalists' observations about the Prez doesn't cut it. Give me a real old fashioned socko, boffo column with real reporting and scoops. Like ya used to.
3
We have known all of this for years, Maureen. You are just a bit late.
10
A silly, pretentious self-righteous fantasy. You could write this about any presidential administration and its cronies (excuse me, milieu). Trump is a boor, the others just hid it better.
I wrote this once before. Just stop covering this idiot for one day and see what happens. He'll probably have a complete breakdown.
Stop feeding his ego, don't report his early morning tweets.
The unwinding will be begin and we can all have a front line seat to
the straightjacket fitting.
7
We all know Trump and his ilk are mobsters. Russia is run by the mob. The real question is what is the brass of the NYTimes doing having meetings with these thugs? Maybe that should be a headline.
Trump needs to be careful he doesn't end up like Capone. Long prison term for tax evasion and dying of syphilis.
4
A gangster would have more guts than Donald Trump. Trump hides behind others then throws them under the bus.
For a woman that supported every mean thing about Hillary Clinton she could come up with, Dowd’s columns take real gall.
9
Trump isn't even Fredo.
He's more like Carlo, a seriously cheap thug, who married Connie, would beat her to a pulp and then get Sonny knocked off.
2
trump is a boring Fredo.
What is Dowd smoking these days? Does she think Obama did this country any good? We now have a booming economy , plenty of jobs, wealth creation, return to the glory days ... what else does she want???
3
@Sam
The good economy started under Obama. Check out job growth and the market the last two years of his presidency after recovery form the great recession. Trump inherited the Obama economy.
12
@Sam And a gutted EPA; the end of the Endangered Species Act; harm to marine mammals; a sick planet that will now become sicker. Thanks Trump!
2
Oh, little things. Decency, respect for citizens, voting, not eating the seed corn, no gangsterism, a government that didn't expect us to kowtow, not having the President grab loot with both hands and a foot, stuff like that.
Myself, I just have a Christmas wish that Trumpists would notice reality from time to time. Just little stuff, like where the economy was when President Obama took office.
2
Roy Cohn would be so proud of his protégé.
10
I keep hoping against hope that Mueller will deliver a wet and rotting fish wrapped in newspaper to our gangster-in-chief at the White House, because if something doesn’t change soon, it’s American democracy which is going to be “sleeping with the fishes.”
14
Trump is boring
5
Maureen -- you helped elect the Con with all your hit jobs on Hilary. You too, are culpable.
30
@MoneyRules Yes!
2
Let's all remember what happened to the purported "Teflon Don", John Gotti, who escaped successful federal prosecution for years in New York, until he didn't, the ironic victim of his flipped fellow mobster, "Sammy the Bull" Gravano. Gotti died in prison, his reputation as an untouchable felon shattered and forever put to rest.
The similarities with the the Gotti denouement are indeed striking, with the addition of Trump's longtime accountant Weisselburg adding another crucial fear-inducing element for our Fake Treasonous President. I have no doubt and absolute faith that the "good guys" will win yet again, putting the "bad guy" Trump out of the Oval Office and, hopefully, into a jail cell. As they say, every dog has its day. Trump will have his.
13
Would that he had gone to film school! You can always change the channel on soft porn and sleazy reality TV. How much better off we'd be!
6
Trump is a disaster:
"O’Brien recalled that Trump told him that he thought Clint Eastwood was the greatest movie star. 'He and Melania model their squints on Eastwood,” the biographer noted.'"
But let us understand that it takes those little trumpkins in trumpland to reinforce trump's vile behavior. And this wouldn't matter much, but statistics shifted the Republican *nomination* to trump out of 17 more qualified candidates; few Republican presidential primary voters showed up at the polls. Maybe an average of under 25%; in North Dakota, *less than one percent* (0.7%) of voters showed up. So this distribution *easily* could have been pushed to trump by Russian trolls. The trump mob poisoned the statistics. It's like Whitey Bulger's winning the lottery.
So trump the gangster slimed his way into the election, using his dumb trumpkins and Russian help to manipulate their simple minds. Putin is the top mob boss.
Trumpkins believe anything that their mobster says; one trumpkin told me recently that he thought that Obama's actions and the Liberal press caused Ivanka to close down her company. Trumpkins are incredibly stupid people. Just the type to work in trump's mob. And trump so likes dumb, devoted people to serve him. The Electoral College, Fox News, evangelicals and Russians propelled these criminals to power.
11
Is this what we've come to, the American Presidency in the hands of a capo di tutti capi? I watched a series on Rome during the time of Julius Caesar's rise to power in parallel with the erosion of the role of the Roman Republic. I am struck by the historical parallels between the ancient past and the present. The exception is that Caesar was intelligent, highly talented and capable as compared or rather in contrast to President Trump.
My point is that the Congress needs to stand up to President Trump with a unified shout of "Enough is enough!" They know that Trump's thoughts and actions are wrong. Where are the members of Congress with backbone and indifference to Trump's base that will do the right thing and take a stand for the health, well being and preservation of our democracy? President Trump cannot posture as a dictator nor can he embrace and try to emulate the actions of other strong men such as Putin.
Criticism of President Trump is rampant. Action is needed besides pinning our hopes and expectations on the midterm elections. Where are the members of Congress that care more about their country than their reelection or tenure in office to challenge President Trump on the floor of Congress?
Now, Congress needs to step up and assert its position as an equal member of our democratic rule to bring the president in line otherwise the next president will have a monumental task to repair President Trump's damage domestically and especially on the world stage.
13
How is it that anyone would want four more years of this?
17
All true, but that just highlights how poorly your criticisms of Obama and Clinton have aged. The more accurate you describe Trump, the less relevant your prior articles are. Catch 22?
20
"Rat pack air?" Oh, but they were so suave. Trump is more like the flat, supporting character compared to someone like Sinatra, don't you think? Of course, Bannon, like Trump, plays the same game, pumping up and tearing down because none of us are real to them, only their own small circle.
6
If further proof of “ The Don” similarity were needed, a quick peak at the party pictures ( in the Shiny Sheet a local rag)from Trumps Mar a Lago Club would confirm this, no more the gathering place of Kennedy’s, Phippses, Vanderbilt’s and Fords the revelers resemble more the Al Capones and Meyer Lanskys, no longer “old guard”, more nouveau “untouchables “ of finance and commerce.
9
I grew up on Mott Street, parallel to Mulberry Street, exactly as described in the book, "The Godfather". A few blocks south were the favored "clubs" of the various families. At that time even the Dons had apartments in the area, before moving mostly to Long Island.
I went to Stuyvesant High School just as Donald was ramping up his entry into Manhattan real estate. I read the stories in the Post and the Daily News. Even then, when I looked at him, occasionally we were actually in the same room, he look just like the mobsters on Mott Street and sounded and gestured just like them. I thought then he was one of them but maybe not because he was not Italian.
When I went to college I kept following his stories out of curiosity about this fellow, now Manhattanite, New Yorker. He embodied all the characteristics I did not want and had avoided all my life, even while living on Mott Street.
He and his family are mobsters through and through. Period.
22
When you buy loyalty, what happens when the payments stop?
10
I think the Godfather and Goodfellas are an a lot of people's top movies, these are some really good movies.
Two scenes from "Godfather" 1 and 2 remind me of Trump's machinations. In 1 Woltz wakes up in bed with a horse's head. Trump might do this to Cohen to send a message. And the scene in 2 where Meyer Lansky is carving up a cake of Cuba, could also be a scene in Trump tower where Don the con is carving up a cake of America with his family, Cohen and his CFO. In the end Trump will get the proverbial kiss from Mueller and friends.
4
As someone that grew up in the New Jersey suburbs of New York City I have watched the Trumps and Kushners for decades. I have always said that they were connected to the 5 families. And yet he was elected to the highest office in the land.
Finally someone has seen through the smoke and mirrors to see the truth.
Now we need the electorate to wake up as well.
18
Anyone who has been paying attention for the past 40 years knows this. The Daily News was covering these stories while the NY Times was fretting about the quality of California Chardonnay.
Ms. Dowd is showing her enabler's regret in the latest columns. Too late now...
33
@Jack be Quick I see no evidence she has regret.
4
The movie we should have paid the most attention to was "Back to the Future: Part II", where alternate-1985 Biff was modeled directly on Donald Trump. Remember when it was Ted Cruz asking us if we wanted this sort of creature we wanted as our President? If we noticed his point at all, we casually scorned it given that we scorned everything else he said, but on this, he did have a point.
Imagine Doc Brown fainting when he learned that not only was Biff wealthy, corrupt, and married to Marty's mother, but also the Leader of the Free World.
5
This whole thing is a little bit of a stretch and kind of off the mark. Trump to me is more like an idiot tin pan banana republic dictator. And Cohen is nothing like Sammy The Bull. He's a psychotic stone cold killer, who took enjoyment in hurting people. Cohen is a weak punk. Actually Dowd's beloved Bush family operates (or operated) much more a mob family. Her pals 'Bar' and Daddy Bush running the show. They removed Manuel Noriega, using the armed forces (tax payer dollars), because he wanted a bigger cut of the drug market. He also had the goods on Bush. They allowed, encouraged Saddam Hussein to go into Kuwait and then told Kuwait & the Saudis, we'll get him out for a price. Oil profits. The whole Enron debacle where their pal Ken Lay & Cheney (the real consigliere) held back and robbed energy & reaped billions. There's many more apt comparisons.
....Trump is a just moron and has no shame. He also sees what powerful people can get away with everyday. And what he has gotten away with. His pal Putin is more like the mob boss now.
19
Trump is a megalomaniac with the same traits, needs and tactics as a megalomaniacal mob boss. Think of the video clips of mobsters like Gotti getting out of the car in front of the club. The crew fawns and submits to the boss. People talk about trump emphasizing loyalty, but loyalty here is confused with blind obedience, submission and servitude. I'm not sure that there is anyone that trump would not cut loose, throw overboard, or destroy should he believe his survival is in doubt. A stone fortress of ego was constructed long ago around a black hole of insecurity within this man. He needs almost constant praise and reassurance of his 'greatness' to keep from being sucked in.
16
I think you've nailed it here, Maureen. I think I hear The Donald mumbling "Fuggeddaboudit!!" every time his twitter fingers shout "Fake News!".
4
It seems that Ms Dowd has read Jonathan Chait’s excellent exposition on Don the Con and thrown something together in the same vein.
Her column skipped along and was disjointed; it had no new thinking and wasn’t accurate strictly speaking in the portrayal of Don yearning for rich macho man status.
Ms Dowd can be an excellent writer. When she tries; and this wasn’t it.
8
This is all well and good. But it leaves out the million dollar questions: How can so many Americans fall for his nonsense? How can so many otherwise decent evangelicals bury their principles and support a gangster wannabe to preserve a process (abortion) that will continue no matter how the Supreme Court is stocked? How can so many people be so (pardon my bluntness) stupid?
22
Donald Trump fancies himself to be Don Corleone.
But in reality, he is Fredo.
"I’m smart. Not like everybody says, like dumb. I’m smart and I want respect!"
20
Are you sure Mulberry Street was so bleak n the 1920s as this current White House?
5
If Trump and his gang of thieves stuck to just plain old crime we could assume that in due time the G-men would round up the crooks and put them in Sing Sing or wherever they store gangsters these days.
This administration isn't just running numbers, illegal gambling, prostitution, or drugs and having their own little turf wars.
The Trump gang is committing TREASON and raping the country.
25
If Trump, the self styled “pezzonovante”...or big shot. had to deal with a real mob boss he would fold like a cheap suit.
11
@Harley Leiber
I might suggest he IS dealing with a real mob boss in Vladimir Putin, and yes, he has folded like the proverbial cheap suit.
5
Trump thinks he’s Vito or Michael. But we all know he’s Fredo
13
This was all achingly obvious in 16, at least to people familiar with him. Why didn't you pursue him then? Your vendetta against Hillary was hard to stomach.
47
@br. I know. She writes column after column as if this had all just now come to her attention, and people write in to praise her witticisms. Even NYT readers have 5 minute attention spans.
3
And to think, you wasted so many paragraphs on Hillary Clinton during the run-up to the election. Whatever influence you had on people went to supporting Trump since you were and are so anti-Hillary. And you still write about him like you like him, deep down. Sad!
44
I have nightmares about Javanka going to run for Presidency!
God save us all...
6
Gary Grant? I hope that was a typo,
8
Ah, Mo, this gives Trump far too much credit. As a long time New Yorker, I know that real estate developers and construction folks thought Trump was a vain, primping idiot. They neither feared nor respected him. A close friend met with Trump in Trump's office about a possible collaboration on a building he was putting his name on. My friend describes him sitting behind a huge desk with the sunlight streaming through his absurd pompadour.
The real mobsters would be offended at Trump's imitation. He can't even face his own cabinet members and fire them. He is a weakling who can only assert authority on scripted reality shows. Do you think a real mobster would have mooned over Putin or found Kim a compelling figure?
Trump is too pitiful and stupid to be either president or a mobster.
22
Cohen is smart enough not to admit (under oath!) to lying to the FBI.
A coke? I never would have guessed.
2
Good to know that our President is not just a Russian puppet, he is also a mobster! Thanks for clarifying that!!
9
Cohen has made himself an easy target so how come Trump has not wacked him?
3
"Our classy president", Ms. Down? In whose book is The Con Don - predator and liar in chief - classy?
Maybe in your circle in New York.
Not to the vast majority of Americans who are seeing him try to destroy every social good since Teddy and FDR/Elanor Roosevelt in his insatiable, demented, spoiled greed.
He thinks he's a "Versailles boy". Wonder if he remembers that they all lost their heads?
19
Oops! Sorry Ms. Dowd.
3
@njglea - Dowd meant "classy" sarcastically. I don't care for her either, but who else is in "her circle" if such a circle exists? Other Times op-ed columnists? If so, who are they?
1
@njglea "Wonder if he remembers that they all lost their heads?" Hope springs eternal.
I can't stand the Mafia Don who runs the country, but he sounds more like a Mafia Donald Duck than a mafia don. The crime families of the cosa nostra had infinitely more brains and class than the intelletually and morally stunted cretin in the White House.
On a serious note, part of Donald Trump's malign character was formed by his status as a Realtor.
Big time realtors benefit from the most outrageous tax breaks. They can make the mercantile misanthropes at Goldman Saks look like choir boys.
By lavishing so many undeserved riches on Donald Trump, the perverse federal tax code gave him, and his Father before him, the delusion that they were all-powerful and above and beyond the rule of Law. Indeed, New York realtors are, as a group, some of the most avaricious bullies you will ever meet and they are the reason why so many gifted people are living in squalid studio apartments, or glorified prison cells.
45
Kinda Cliche-Ridden -- Thursday Reunification Deadline offered more timely, needed topic to keep forefront
3
Sure Tump lovesThe Godfather. Last year, when he said "There are a lot of killers. You think our coumtry is so innocent." That echoed Michael's "Now who is being naive?" when kay says presidents dont kill men. Also, when Sonny says that guys who enlisted in WWII were "saps" that is probably what President Bone Spurs thinks.
19
Didn't you know all this, or most of it, when you were cutting down Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and acting as an apologist for Trump?
What were you thinking?
158
@Dadof2
Thank you, Dad, your children should be proud.
Maureen, you and Comey have much to atone for.
23
@Dadof2 What was she thinking? I have often wondered about this and can't help but think Dowd along with Putin and Comey helped Don the Con get elected. How does she live with that?
3
A very good description of sociopathic behavior.
14
I think Ms. Dowd, Anderson Cooper and that lady on MSNBC will have nervous breakdowns over Trump before the year is out.. Day in, day out, week by week--same old ,same old. Get a life! Adopt a child! Get drunk! The country is 242 years old , oldest operating constitution is the world-revolutionary war, civil war, two world wars. Get a new topic. Visit America.
14
@Bob Baskerville Your friend Don the Con has no relationship to anything noble about America.
14
If the POTUS wasn’t a lying fool EVERY day, we’d all get a life. Funny how many Americans are willing to live with the daily lies, yet they all had cows when Obama wore a brown suit. Who really needs to get a life?
2
The US isn’t a static entity. Oak trees can be a hundreds of years old but disease in the heartwood will kill them. Trump and his gang are like that disease. Times are very different. Empires collapse.
I’m very thankful that the press is constantly nipping at the heels of this criminal President. If you don’t believe nations can be brought down by a bad politician put away the Fox goggles and read real history.
1
Too many Republicans say they like Trump’s policies but not his character. In effect, they say they like “winning” — especially since Trump’s “winnings” come at the expense of those undeserving “Others” whom the Democrats stood up for.
To those “policy-lovers” who are my friends, I usually ask a single question: Is this the kind of President you want — an alleged adulterer, one who reportedly authorized payments of hush money to porn stars, a bully on Twitter and at his rallies, a lout who attacks Gold Star parents and honorable men like John McCain, and a so-called leader who cowers in the face of our enemies?
When some defend him, I respond, “I’ve lost all respect for you.”
43
No insight here on his base allegiance to Vladimir Putin which is at the root of his illegitimate presidency. You live in New York, Maureen. Surely you have run into your share of Russian oligarchs and mafia boys to have some insight into how the Trump family was turned. And how clever that the chem killer Putin handed Trump an unvetted soccer ball on international tv and Trump did not drop frothing at the mouth. See, the man is to be trusted.
11
You left out the NRA as a conduit for Putin's Russian money and once fellow casino owner Adelson. The art of the illegal rigged game. The fixer should be very wary of perfume bottles, car accidents, unexpected heart attacks, and hanging himself.
32
Don’t forget defenestration.
1
...what does it say about the USA that 35% of America's voters SUPPORT the man who would be 'Vito'!?
25
It says to me that 35% of our fellow Americans are brainwashed, but we can't afford to coddle them, build our politics around them or ... We simply need to go on they are the "left behind". Sad but true.
It’s a shame you weren’t running stories like this in 2016 instead of hating on Clinton.
116
@David
Thus are the means of propaganda controlling the Free Press by calling into question any perceived bias if they do not vigorously expounded any blemishes hyperventilated by their opponent.
Trump beat them up calling fake news accusing them of refusing to cover him and they bent over backwards to prove him wrong... and by doing so played right into his hands
Truth be told what I just said is merely hyperbole since we must keep in mind this is a job for Ms Dowd, and for all the media, and a very well-paying one at that, regardless of who's in power
The resistance must be for us to stop believing the press is in any way going to come to the rescue... they are too busy pandering for access
1
Hip Hop is always the first cultural appropriator of criminality. They’ve been celebrating him for years.
“Ridin in my Benz with a sawed off pump, throwin money on the corner like Donald Trump.”
20
We elected Trump because the Democrats were dishonest and sleezy. We'll have another chance in 2020. I trust Ms Dowd will still be here, and give us her opinion on why Trump might win.
5
Makes total sense, comrade. Elect Trump to combat a lack of honest and integrity dishonesty in government.
And from our 'You Can't Make this Stuff Up' Department, this goon who's notorious for stiffing his creditors is ranting and raving that he will not tolerate America's being stiffed by China, Canada, NATO and God knows who all.
20
I don't understand what they teach in law schools; the recent clowns Rudy, Cohen and team are all a shameful act for law and such.
28
I can't resist reminding Maureen yet again that her Clinton hatred was a big help to trump.
88
@jsutton yes, i agree with you. maureen is truly complicit in our current situation. a stain you cannot remove, ms. dowd, no matter how hard you try, what you now write. you are complicit.
6
When did Maureen Dowd go from what I considered the antithesis of what a political reporter should be, having always shown next to no objectivity or impartiality in her opinions to now saying much of what I would have written and said myself? Surprisingly, this terrifies me because while I've know about his (lack of) character since the days of his first divorce and subsequent estrangement from his children for 3+ years, if "the teflon don" meets with the disapproval of even Maureen Dowd then he REALLY REALLY REALLY must be truly awful. Well, yes I guess he is and I can say that "I agree with Maureen Dowd". Whoa, another terrifying situation.
14
Mr. Trump, show us your tax returns.
MASA - Make America Smart Again
32
Maureen, thanks for your "The Don and His Badfellas"! Lovely to see Robert De Niro as Robert Mueller - pointing to his eyes and then to Baldwin/Trump in the New Jersey cafe -- in last episode of SNL this April. We are all seeing Trumpland as a sordid redux of "The Sopranos". Hey, maybe there will be an ending to Trump and his wiseguys like Richie Aprile ended up in Satriale's Meat Store in New Jersey after Tony's sister Janice "Parvati" Soprano Baccalieri whacked him for belting her in the mouth in their kitchen. We Americans all inhaled and loved and inhabited The Sopranos for ages and are witnessing Donald Trump recreating wise-guydom in New York, Washington, DC, Florida and NJ. Saturday Night Live is channeling the news -- Ben Stiller as Mickey Cohen, the President's fixer, Kate McKinnon as Rudy Giuliani and Jeff Sessions Beck Bennett as Vice President Pence and Vladimir Putin. The characters enabling President Trump are writ large on SNL, on TV, the Internet, social media and like the old newsreels from 1927 -1957 --"The Eyes and the Ears of the World".
3
@Nan Socolow
Perhaps this is fun and games for you but there truly are very many innocent people suffering through a world of hurt
1
Republicans can no longer claim to be the party of family values unless they're referring to a crime family.
Trump is as dirty as they come. His proxies are arguing about who said 'cash' versus 'check' for the payout to buy the Karen McDougal story. But the real story is Trump needed to pay off yet another bimbo in the run-up to the 2016 election. (Michael Avenati now says he has at least 3 more not including Stormy.)
Unconfirmed reporting says Cohen is willing to testify Trump knew before the Trump Tower meeting that the Russians had dirt on Hillary they wanted to share. And then he blessed the meeting between Don Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort with half a dozen Russians linked to the Kremlin. The alternative has Trump lying when he denied dictating Don Jr's supposed response about Russian adoptions.
Trump planned a big speech on Clinton corruption for the Monday after the meeting, but that never came off when nothing was exchanged at the meeting. Instead, Trump asked for the Russians to release Hillary's emails, and then a day later the GRU established DC leaks as a conduit for stolen Demo material. Curious, no?
Are the Russians really obsessed with adoptions? No, they're obsessed with the Magnitsky act which sanctions Russian oligarchs for human rights violations in their country.
And then we have Brett Kavanaugh waiting in the wings, ready to reverse Roe. Apparently, a SCOTUS pick for the evangelicals absolves everything done by our corrupt first family.
30
Gets into Trumps wallet? Trump doesn't need a wallet, he uses other peoples money.
I wouldn't even bother to push him in the pool, and get his $5 dollars wet.
11
So when you overlay this admiration for crude power and obliviousness to the concepts of fairness and public service onto Trump's fundamental narcissism, it is easier to understand his contempt for most world leaders. They have achieved a level of power he admires but then they blow it: they're not using it right. They're weak. They're pantywaists. How disappointing. So he casts them aside. But then there's Putin! Now there's a man!
6
@Lisa Biladeau - Pantywaists! There's a word I haven't heard in ages!
It'd be humorous if it weren't so ... real. And Really Depressing.
(See, I'm even random capitalizing like him.)
Am officially throwing in the towel. He's a very dangerous idiot -- but he'll outlast us all, in terms of meanness and malice.
I can't and won't even try to match him on those fronts, 'cause who would want to live like that?
The last 2-3 years of being angry due to him has been enough. Very unhealthy.
All I can do is vote. Urge everyone to do the same.
38
Kennedy that much different?
6
@Cynthia Collins really? you need to ask a question like that? Kennedy protected this Country. Trump is doing everything possible to destroy America.
12
Umm, yes
5
Like night and day!
1
Trump represents all the pit falls of getting mine. All the rackets to goose the flow of getting mine. All the disasters to come to all he leads into the pits of getting mine, of making America mine. So goes the flow of Trump's appeal to "where's mine?". And so goes any duty to the commons, any concern beyond the borders of mine. Rat pack in deed.
6
Trump's whole life has been lived in a kiss-up kick-down patronage scheme. It comprises his entire understanding of human nature.
21
Trump and his mafia are bad for the country, I agree. But far worse would be a theocracy under Vice President Pence. BEWARE OF IMPEACHMENT.
24
“When Trump was a little boy, wandering around job sites with his dad — which was the only time he got to spend with him — he saw a lot of guys with broken noses and rough accents. And I think he is really enchanted by base male displays of strength. Think about ‘Goodfellas’"
"GoodFellas" is one version of the American dream. If Donald Trump is Henry Hill, the Ray Liotta character, he seems to have gotten his aspirational priorities backwards.
Henry says he would rather be a wiseguy than president of the United States. Trump, OTOH, had his eye on the presidency for at least as long as Hillary. (Hillary appears to have been conflicted all her life as to which option she preferred..)
Wiseguy won.
4
Once in the 90’s I saw Trump alight from a limo in Manhattan and stride manfully with clenched jaw into the building, preceded by a cameraman and trailed by a skinny blond. Then they all got back in the limo and repeated the exercise. I thought at the time that he had a screw loose.
105
@Robert Hall
Robert, you were right!
The man called the "American Caesar", Douglas MacArthur, actually did the same thing in his 'show' of returning to the Philippines being re-shot several times.
However, other than MacArthur's vanity being a common flaw shared with Emperor Trump, MacArthur proved to be a brilliant and compassionate political figure in Japan, who turned an Empire into a functioning democracy --- which is exactly the opposite of what Emperor Trump is doing to America.
7
@Robert Hall
Yes, Trump has a screw loose, but this makes him always interesting. He generates interest, daily in the media, because of his craziness. The result is his presidency, and an army of millions of Trumpsters.
Democrats, like Obama and Hillary lost out because they appeared to be so sane, predictable and...boring. Boring does not work, anymore.
Democrats must find more interesting candidates and strategies. I suggest interesting idea contests, to find strategies for taking back the House, this November.
2
They must have been filming a scene for the Apprentice. The blond lady was probably Caroline who used to work for the Trump Org and was one of the show's original judges. That was until she started getting well known from the exposure on the show. Trump fired her then. Don't block the sun......
1
Walking around his Dad's job sites as a young boy is likely the closest DJT has ever come to "experiencing" the life of an average American. Until he, his daughter and son-in-law, and Stephen Miller have some authentic average American experience there is no reason to believe they understand nor care about working-class folks. They have never lived in a drafty apartment, struggled to pay the bills. Kushner's parents mysteriously timed a pledge of 2.5 million to Harvard to right before he was accepted with a poor GPA and SATs. Miller's idea of a take-out meal is $80 sushi. More importantly none of them are qualified for the jobs they have been given. The few qualified officials have left. DeVos, she of the 40 million dollar pleasure boat, has a Cabinet post due to being buddies with Pence.
141
@4Katydid Trump's daddy sent his boy out to collect back rent to give him a taste of the desperation of lesser mortals.
11
So Trump's a complete phony; a self-constructed, practiced-in-front of-the-mirror composite of a whole bunch of actors and tough guys and even real geniuses that he admired.
At least, that's his facade. Inside he's still Little Donnie with the rich daddy, trying to prove he's a big boy.
He never will be.
114
Honestly, I find it so difficult to understand why the New York Times continues to give a forum for Maureen Dowd to offer her perspective. Yes, she is witty, insightful and smart. And she earned a place among the top tier of journalists. But long gone are the days she has done any actual leg work - she now lives solely on her wit. And sadly, she used her fame to get gobsmacked by celebrity and Hollywood. In the meantime, she allowed herself to be seduced by Donald Trump. Having never dealt with the consequences of her celebrity infatuations, she now writes as if she had never been seduced.
Maureen really has overstayed here time on the NYTimes OPED page. She hasn't lost her wit and her insight; but she lost credibility a long time ago.
321
@cfxk
Maureen is one of a couple of op-ed writers that pen opinions that impact the country’s greater population. Most current op-ed writers mirror Bari Weiss’ (op-Ed editor) opinion and agenda Friday’s the op-ed is unreadable and usually skip.
1
I like Maureen, but I miss Gail Collins.
1
@cfxk. Exactly! Thank you!!!
2
Strange that Maureen saw no indicators of this before the election. Very strange.
166
So Mo, you asked DeNiro and he didn't actually answer, and you report on it anyway? Gee, you almost had a primary source. You were almost a journalist.
95
@DCBinNYC My guess is that many of us saw what she did there. Thanks for clearly pointing it out.
3
The Trump organization does a fair imitation of the Soprano family. However, comparisons to the Corleones are grossly unfair to a respectable crime syndicate, with the possible exception of Fredo.
29
A vile, vile, cartoon caricature. When does the cartoon end?
33
Hopefully with impeachment.
3
God, or someone, please help us!
21
I once met Joseph Barbera, who was the host of the Appalachin meeting back in the 50's.
He spoke and acted like a gentleman. His son appeared gentile and his daughter went to one of the 7 sisters colleges.
Yet, for all that, he was a killer. I was only 16 at the time and had no real appreciation for what he was, but he sure fit the mold.
Trump? White trailer park trash making himself out to be a gentleman? Give me a mafioso every time.
39
Love your post but I think you meant genteel, not gentile.
2
In the Godfather Part ll, Michael Corleone is contemplating whether whacking his two remaining major opponents was possible. His lawyer Tom Hagen argued that since the Feds had them in protective custody, it would be almost impossible to get to them. Michael replied that "history has taught us that nothing is impossible" and his enforcer Neri chimed in by saying it would difficult but not impossible.
Trump may in the end be brought down by his itchy twitter finger, his own big mouth and the company he keeps/kept or as history has taught us, no one is untouchable.
30
“Itchy twitter finger” — nicely done!
2
Trump isn't a gangster, just a con man.
62
@James B, At least there is no evidence that Trump is the type to apply Novichok to the doorknobs of his critics.
2
Gangster economy needs a gangster president. We are so we got one.
29
Mama mia signora you've just produced the ultimate Dowd column. Trump proclaimed in 2016, he could stand on New York's Fifth Avenue "and shoot somebody" and still not lose any voters". Blessed are we to have such a benevolent dictator, blessed.
An aspiring mafioso si signora, best he keep the Genovese mafiosi happy ; )
12
So Trump and his pack are criminals. I suppose the Pope is Catholic and the sun sets in the West.
74
And, all this says what?!
17
Read KJ's comment next to yours. That should clear it up for ya.
3
@KCoxThat we have an always-lying, lacking-in-any-integrity, no-nothing, wanna-be authoritarian, Russian Manchurian president.
3
I'm telling ya, one of these trips our strawberry buddy takes to Russia, he ain't comin' back. And it just might be somebody else's idea, ya know what I mean? Cuz see, Trump's guys, they know where his bodies are buried all right, but Trump? Trump, he knows where the people above him have buried a whole lot more than just a bunch of figurative bodies. Know what I mean? Trump knows where Mr Putin puts problems when he's done with em and it ain't no oligarch's dacca on any Volga. But at the end of the day, who else will Trump have to turn to? Oh wait, he was talking about beach condos near Pyongyang the other day. Different strokes, that's what I always say.
46
So... will we get the plane back?
9
@Brucer The riuskies have a lot on Don the Con but what do they gain if they release it and what do they risk? Don the Con will not be taken down by ruskies. That job is for America.
3
I have a strong suspicion that when Trump becomes too much of a liability to the Republican party--when his behavior becomes too erratic for them to count on him signing their oligarch-enhancing bills, and/or when he threatens their free trade, undocumented immigrant enhanced profits--they'll do the equivalent of sending him to sleep with the fishes, which might mean staying silent on a Democrat house backed impeachment drive, or even sending a primary challenger after him in 2020.
16
@Glenn Ribotsky What the republicans fear is voter backlash from opposing don the con. They have known he is a dangerous idiot for long time., but he voters are his support system. republicans have no interest in America.
3
@Glenn Ribotsky - honestly, you joke, but I very much suspect Trump literally fears for his life.
Since Mr. DeNiro seems only capable of expressing himself through obscenities, he is perhaps not the most sensible person to use as a reference point. Mr. DeNiro may be a fine actor - but as the general population has learned - Hollywood types are not the sources of wisdom for either politics, or life in general.
24
Really we have elected the first Russian President. Gospodin Trump.
8
O' say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the gangster and the home of his goons?
How proud are we who revered what our flag once stood for, knowing now the Oval Office is a den of thieves led by a mafia wannabe boss?
But I dare not speak for all. Thievery and strongarm tactics are much admired by Republicans. Apparently, making America feared is making America great again.
Emulating Russian aggression is the new Republican Party platform. And Soviet style disinformation is their unified voice.
Republicans also fear their godfather. As in an organized crime family, getting out means being targeted. Disposed of. But Republicans are not looking to get out. They are bending over to kiss the hand of the godfather who has America under his thumb.
So are we proud of what America is becoming? Feel good about where we're headed? Will America dominating the earth, dictating how high nations must jump make you pledge allegiance with more enthusiasm...or sarcasm?
Trump represents every reason I could never vote Republican. I value honesty, decency and compassion for humanity too much to vote for shortsighted selfish gain. On steroids.
25
You've got to be kidding Maureen. If anyone ran their administration like Don Corleone, it was Obama. All the lies, and strong armed tactics used by his intelligence agencies. Setting up Trump's campaign to spy on it to find dirt instead of going after Russians. By the way where is the DNC server? The brushing off of all of Hillary's felonies. Meetings on the tarmac. Sweet Uranium I deals that made HRC and her foundation plenty of money. Using the IRS to squeeze conserative groups. Trump is shaking up the D.C. swamp. It's about time.
8
@connie
Great compilation of Trump’s favorite memes.
Unfortunately, they are fantasies, not realities.
61
@connie
You forgot “Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi!”
Nice try, though.
1
@Rita Someday you will wake up, smell the coffee and #walkaway. Facts are facts. Do your research.
"The Don" is a bona fide (early mob-speak Italian) sociopath who has now gone to the mattresses (well, maybe he's been there a lot before with Karen, Stormy, and Michael knows who) with Rudy the Mouth now that some "smoking gun" tapes have revealed his lies, money laundering, and campaign violations. Of course, it's all "exculpatory" (more Mafia talk for "I did nothin" capish"). The bodies piled up outside the West Wing of Mike, Steve, Reince, Rex, Sean, Tom, Scott, H.R., Hope, The Mooch etc. (more early Mafia-speak) should have been a tip-off long ago that something foul was polluting the swamp besides the E.P.A. Now Eliot Ness is closing in. But be quick, the getaway car is waiting with a ticket to Moscow to "visit" with the Capo di tutti capi (real Mafia-speak) Vladimir and finally build that Trump tower.
13
@Paul Wortman, Trump knows if he gets a "ticket to Moscow," literal or otherwise, he'll be killed.
Maybe it should have been written: 'Citing his top five movies as “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” “Goodfellas” and “The Godfather.'
1
If you are in need of a movie to learn about Trump, watch “Journey’s End,” the recent World War One movie about a group of English soldiers in the trenches being led against Germans by a psychologically-falling-apart Captain.
And if you look very closely you may notice yourself in one of the foxholes.
There’s also an 1930 version directed by James Whale.
https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/journeys-end-review-ol...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey%27s_End_(1930_film)
4
Real mobsters don't do mobsters as well as great actors do, duh!
And Trump isn't mobster nor is he a competent actor. He's a buffoonish grifter, and at the extreme narcissistic end of the grifter distribution -- narcissism being nearly universal in grifters.
Grifters live (or die) by cockroach rules: stay small, stay out of the light, keep moving on, have a good hidey-hole to run to.
Cockroaches who get attracted to the light and forget they are a cockroach get stepped on.
44
Nice piece, but lot of us have been comparing Trump to a mobster for a long time now. And you left out what could have been a great closer: “Goodfellas” was fun.
9
Maureen you appear to be just beginning to catch up. Apparently you didn't read previous articles published in the NYT, Phila Inquirer even the WSJ - see Trump & the Goodfellas Dec 11, 2015. (So please check the NYT database of articles next time) They published Trump's agreement with the FBI to act as a confidential informant in Atlantic City. Despite being advised by as his FBI handler not to engage with Organized Crime in Atlantic City Trump proceeded ahead because he got a get out of jail free card by being a RAT. Trump came to Atlantic City with a Genovese family associate Sullivan, a Teamsters Official & then joined with Nicodemo Scarfo the head of the SJ - Phila Family. So Trump is not "like" a mobster; Trump IS a mob associate & has been since the 70s
What is truly bizarre is Rudy's behavior because I believe they bugged Roy Cohn's office in the Mob Commission case & must have gotten statements about Trump doing mob bidding. And now Rudy is Trump's main defender when he clearly knows what Trump is. Yet Rudy is willing to use his reputation to shelter Trump & knowingly lies repeatedly to the American People to do so. So that is what has become of "America's Mayor;" a clear lesson for anyone who chooses to associate with Trump - just know you'll get knifed in the back when no longer useful to Trump
95
Rudy’s behavior has always been bizarre.
2
Hail Mary, have mercy on us!
2
Oh please. New Yorkers have known for decades
that Trump was a liar, with known mob ties etc.
Dowd can pretend otherwise, but no one worked harder
to put Don Vito Trump into the Oval Office, which is
now the Offal Office.
When Trump goes to Moscow, he is just visiting
the home office
Ms Dowd owns this mess.
word
47
So do we get AF-1 back after he decides to stay?
1
I'm shocked that De Niro didn't use any of those colorful four letter words during his summit with Ms Dowd.
However I do advise Ms Dowd to be careful with it comes to gangsters unless she wants to find a horse's head next to her laptop.
1
A lot of reportage in this column.
What do you really think of Trump, Maureen Dowd?
Is it really true that some girls are enchanted by bad boys?
20
There are charming bad boys, but don't confuse them with bloviating trash.
2
That sums up the situation nicely
3
After a year and a half of watching this pathetic man take on the presidency the question is now not whether Donald Trump a deplorable person, a pathological liar and a man without a moral compass. We do not need to wonder anymore whether he has been compromised by hostile foreign power and has conspired to undermine our democracy. We know now that this is true.
What we need to start thinking about is how we can legally and effectively extract this cancer from the presidency and from our government. Nobody wishes this president harm, but at the same time no one would want to see this country fall apart at the expense of a man who cares considerably more about himself than his country . The ratings that television networks are receiving because of the histrionics of this man are not worth the demise of our democracy.
As it stands now it will take years to repair the damage that Donald Trump has done both domestically and internationally.
How far are we willing to go before we finally realize that enough is enough?
59
I really do not want to continue to write or think much more about Maureen Dowd’s 2016 Trump-related failings. I personally had seen enough of Trump’s bullying during the campaign to convince me he had no business being the president of the United States, regardless of what Ms. Dowd did or did not say. In fact, after his nasty “imitation” of a NYT physically-challenged journalist I pretty much refused to listen to anything he had to say. However, for the many voters in the middle or even on the left who were not enamored with Hillary, I could see how a famous New York Times’ columnist’s kid gloves treatment of Trump, skipping any mention of his and his family’s mob-like ethos, could have informed their choices. Indeed, her columns contained a certain excitement over his candidacy, creating the impression that a Trump presidency might be something fun to watch. But Ms. Dowd was not alone among the media swarm to “favor” Trump over Clinton. Hillary’s “baggage” took front and center, so not much time or space was devoted to Trump’s dark heart and past. And, so, here we are...so much more exhausted than any of Clinton’s baggage could have brought about.
167
@Cmary
Spot on!!!!!! Too little, too late.
2
If I were Robert DeNiro I'd have asked you why you were a Trump enabler and Hillary basher during the campaign? How about it Mo; care to respond?
64
Nearly the whole column could have been written two and a half years ago when Trump began running for President. Dowd might have done some reporting then, like she did this year when she spoke to Richard De Niro before the Tony's.
But it was far more important to Dowd to alert the world of the EVIL of Hillary Clinton. 3 top secret emails containing only public information forwarded to State Department employees proved to Dowd how "extremely careless" Hillary could be compared to the goodness Dowd saw in Donald Trump. So sad.
57
Ms. Dowd offers up a wan analysis of Trump’s shortcomings, seen (as always) through her bi-focal prescription lens of daddy-issue masculinity and Hollywood cardboard cutout “manhood”. Reagan and Bush 1 got the deluxe treatment, gentlemen whose nefarious deeds were overlooked because, as father figures, they fit one of her models. Her animus towards Clinton and Bush 2 likewise centered on the superficial, severely limited by her nearsightedness. Obama, of course, brought out the full glory of Dowd’s warped vision: a fine, decent, moral man, ew!
Dowd has really struggled with Trump. She favored him and seemed to give him some Daddy love as he treasoned his way to Russian client-State throne. Now, she’s coming up empty, back to Hollywood tropes, unable to muster any genuine outrage. Sad!
26
Comparing Trump to a Mafia don is an entertaining metaphor but only strengthens the fervor of his base, who believe the elite media and liberal reporters are out to get him. The way to get rid of this utterly unfit man is to first elect a Democratic House and Senate this year and then to defeat him in 2020 with a strong center-left candidate.
32
@Mark Siegel I agree with your first recommendation, elect a Demo House and Senate but then why wait? Impeach this mobster.
2
There is one valuable lesson to be learned from trump presidency, which is just trust yourself.
If you think someone is a close friend, think again.
Rosenstein is the latest one, then of course there is Michael Cohen . He lies and covered for Donald trump, and trump acts as he barely know the man.
Reading Walter Mosley book “my maternal grandmother always tells me that every man gets what he deserves”
That is trump , be ready for that.
8
Please read Brett Stevens' excellent piece on today's NYT's opinion page.
6
Donald is a wannabe Mafioso, but he is no match for Putin and his Russian mob apparatus.
25
Ms. Dowd clearly preferred the mobster type she now describes to Mrs. Clinton. As she admitted had voted for the mobster. Ms. Dowd is a talented writer but for some reason in the past hated the Clintons.
We are all reaping what she and others sowed with words.
130
@tom, you think Maureen caused Hillary to lose? you give her too much credit. Kindly talk to the folks in MI, WI and PA (outside Pittsburgh ie).
1
Do we not know by now the President's personal flaws and breathtaking impropriety for the job? These are just distractions now from the harm that's being done to the country, behind all the smoke and stink and glitter. We need clear, simple explanations of what's happening and what to do about it when we get to vote.
64
I'm one of those men who cite "Good Fellas" as one of my favorite movies. But not "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."
"Good Fellas" had a great scene in which the Joe Pesci character (Tommy) got what he royally deserved for messing with a "made" gangster. There was a rule that was followed and "Tommy " paid the price. Tommy was the most hideous human being ever and he got it. "The Good, the Bad , and the Ugly" had a scene where the camera kept focusing on the various bad guys' scowls and I thought at the time the scene would never end.
2
Trump is not the most appealing president of recent times. There seem to be plenty of warts.
But the fact remains that unemployment is low, that we just saw GDP growth at a 4.1% annual rate, and the two Koreas are talking to each other.
I wish the NYT could keep their eyes more on America and the world and less on Trump himself.
Do you REALLY want to undermine Trump and then proceed to go to war with Russia? Just what IS the matter with you?
Also, I do not see Trump as dictator at all. A judge issues an order about uniting children with their parents and the Trump administration rushes to comply. Their compliance may be less than perfect but it is obvious that the administration is acknowledging the role of the judiciary.
So let us please have less anti-Trump invective and more attention to what is happening.
5
Unemployment is low because desperate people are taking minimum wage jobs. So, while they're working, they're not making ends meet. The economy grew 4.1% based on manufacturers buying extra materials before the tariffs go into effect...
No, he's not a dictator, yet. But he's well under way undermining democratic institutions, the rule of law, etc. We don't want to wake up, God forbid, in 2024, with either efforts to change the rules to be able to run for a third term, or organizing a third-world style "election" where one of his children wins on a landslide replete with irregularities that would make former Central Americans, or Putin, giggle with pleasure.
36
Do you REALLY have a clue about what Trump is doing to our country? How can you divorce ethics, civility, morality, and the rule of law from economics? Is that the country you want to live in?
4
Regardless of results we should not want an amoral, mendacious and bullying person who truly thinks he’s above the laws and our great national institutions leading the country.
Many countries have made that sort of trade-off - including Germany in the 1930’s - and it doesn’t work out well.
3
Did Cohen have the foresight to document his knowledge of the 'Trump Tower' meeting before it happened. If he did that's the ballgame.
5
The thing about "The Godfather" is that it was fiction loosely based on reality. This is reality, not a movie, no matter how entertaining or salacious. Real mobsters are dangerous. They don't think of society as a whole. Secrecy is paramount. Sometimes the "public leader" is not the actual one "pulling the strings". We kid ourselves to think that Trump acts alone. He has a vast network of complicit mobsters: Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Scalise, Jim Jordan, John Roberts and so on. Even some Republican women are complicit. They act all prissy about women's issues and then vote with the men. These people represent the deep pocketed like the Koch Brothers and others who hide from view, just like real mobsters. Do they "pull the strings?" Do we know? The media loves complaining about Trump because it sells so well. How much profit has Trump brought to Facebook, Twitter, MSNBC, Fox News, Google and others? Who wants to give that up? No matter, it's only a movie, da?
19
@et.al.nyc
You forgot Giuliani, and the GOP Congress peeps who voted for a permanent tax heist: huge cuts for corporations and the very rich. The rest of us get smaller cuts which will end in 2027. The reduction in revenue over the long term will not sustain a sophisticated complex enterprise aka the United States of America. There is no other world power with our reach; Russia is a broken mess with her "leader" sitting in London, rich at her expense, fomenting chaos in open societies. Trump has borrowed 250M from rich Russians as documented in a past issue of New York Magazine; he has now received an additional 95M in FL, money arriving in an unmarked plane. If Mueller is as good as some of us believe him to be, he and his talented staff will present evidence to a Grand Jury, get a FISA Warrant, access Trump's tax records, and we will either have a President unfit to serve under Article 25, or driven from office by public opinion. This is not a movie, et.al.nyc, this is either the beginning of a movement to reclaim our Republic, or the beginning of the end, if we fail. The mobsters you reference are really a collection of mediocre men who have slid into positions of power while we were distracted by ginned up gossip and scandals. McConnell kept a decent President from nominating a decent Supreme Court Justice. The GOP has given its donors permanent tax gifts paid for by future tax hikes on the middle class and the working poor. This is real.
1
This is allowed to go on, because we can partition the GOP into three camps: 1) the Brooks/Stephens types who say they stand steadfastly for the system, they just don't like the current product; 2) the Douthat types who say this is all theater that the system can handle, so who cares; and 3) the Randian types like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell who say he is just acting in his own best interest, which we should all support and be doing anyway.
No end in sight folks.
22
You left out where the votes come from. The Christo-fascist white supremacist base so carefully groomed by right wing media the conservative intellectuals denied grooming since Nixon and Reagan did it.
2
You're absolutely right. And a mob boss is exactly what his supporters, and there are still many of them, want. How differently we see the world.
8
Well he shouldn't be let to destroy the nation either. He might have King wannabe eyes on his power in the big office he holds now, and might want his court to praise him and fall down to kiss his ring and all. and acts like he is somehow above any rules that constrain him, but his still just a public servant, not the king, we didn't want a King long ago and still don't want one. Well some might, those people should go to england.
4
Well, MD confirmed yet again that the way to topple Trump, who looks like a mobster, acts like a mobster and sounds like a mobster is to treat him like one - Al Capone springs to mind. Follow the money - it was Capone's taxes (or lack of them) which brought him down. For Trump try these three:
1) NY Attorney-General Barbara Underwood's case against the Trump Foundation for false declarations wrt donations,
2) the move to charge Trump with benefiting from taxpayers through promoting of his hotel and golf properties
3) Trump's ongoing conflict of interest having foreign states using his Washington DC hotel from which he derives income (and influence).
Trump's kryptonite are his tax returns - publicise them and he and his false claims to billions will evaporate.
57
@Cass Phoenix 'Trump's kryptonite are his tax returns - publicise them and he and his false claims to billions will evaporate.' Thanks for this reminder - those taxes!
2
I've grown tired of the metaphors,the euphemisms, and synecdoche employed by writers and broadcasters to explain The Trump Bunch. While useful tools for bamboozling the great unwashed, these divertimenti belie the gravity of an imminent constitutional crisis.
Comparing Trump and Cohen to mobsters, calling it meddling when the Russian state is waging cyber war on our country, and reducing the complexity of a vast right wing conspiracy to the machinations of two puerile potentates, plays right into the Putin and Plump trap.
If we're really going to make American great again, we need to pinpoint the enemies of our country (external and internal), and call them what they are: prevaricators, propagandists, and punch drunk playmates wreaking havoc on timeworn tenets such as truth and decency.
De Niro's ad hominem weakens our argument. Verbal gymnastics divert our attention. But, plain talk will save the day ... and the United States of America.
18
I have also thought that we are living in sn alternate dystopian version of all the US stands for and is supposed to be I am chillingly reminded of Marge Piercy's wonderful "Woman on the Edge of Time" I fear we are moving ever closer to the polluted, dark testosterone-fueled society of concrete, steel and war. "Fasure".
5
James Comey was spot on when he compared Trump's M.O. to that of a mob boss.
Personal loyalty is everything to Trump. Those who dare stand up for themselves or for any principle face Trump's wrath.
Comey himself was axed. Our remaining intelligence agents are reduced to being on "a rigged witch hunt." Sessions has been mercilessly humiliated since recusing himself. Michael Cohen has ceased to be a good man in Trump's eyes because he is now an honest man. Trump has just threatened to revoke security clearances for those who don't toe the line. Then there is the matter of Twitter...
Comey specified that he didn't mean Donald was violent in a mafia manner; but Trump sure uses his power to intimidate and harm those who don't bow down before him.
10
Americans have recently adopted a sympathetic attitude towards thuggish monsters. Look at fictional larger-than-life icons like Tony Soprano and Walter White, both ruthless murderers while being caring family guys and trying to keep their households together out in the suburbs. We could chat them up in the check-out line at Home Depot.
Taking care of business can get messy, but they get what they want, and if you think they're working for you, you think they'll get what you want.
20
Exactly
The Corleones, Sopranos, and Paulie's crew are heroes.
In real life, John Gotti is mythical in parts of NY. It is part of the appeal of Trump.
1
As Lanny Davis said, there are only two kinds of people who talk about paying off people with cash—drug dealers and mobsters. Of course, one only has to listen to the Don euphemistically discussing, on the Cohen tape, taking care of “that thing” to understand that we are in the land of La Cosa Nostra.
The irony here is that, whether it’s the book by Puzo or the vastly superior film by Coppola, “The Godfather” was always intended, and is best interpreted, as a thinly veiled critique of capitalism in general. The Don has merely taken the “nothing personal, strictly business” aspect of the American way to a whole new level. There’s a reason no president has ever been convicted, nor likely ever will, of violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution. At the risk of mixing theater and television metaphors, to paraphrase that 60’s child philosopher “The Beaver,” the Don is merely giving us all the business.
11
Trump's performance as President has always been more puffed up Fredo ("I can handle things. I'm smart") than Don Vito's or Michael's ruthless competency, but he has something the Don's never had:
A jury filled with enough Republican Senators the he is legally allowed to threaten, that profits politically from his con, that he can legally direct campaign money to, and that will never supply the votes needed to muster a 2/3 majority to remove him from office.
Taking out Trump needs to be done in the street: By voting. A political double-tap: Democrats take the House in 2018 to constrain him, and finish him off in 2020.
23
The idea that Trump acts like a Mafia Don isn't exactly anything new. It just gets reinforced with more examples every day. But it is very disturbing to me that there are so many people in this who seem to be perfectly fine with the idea that a Mafia Don is RUNNING THE UNITED STATES!
25
@Debra Petersen Meant to say "{so many people in this COUNTRY', etc.
"He’s turning America into Mulberry Street in the ’20s, where you meet your co-conspirators in the back of the candy store.”
For all who are not from NYC,
Mulberry Street is in the heart of what used to be called Little Italy, where the Italian mobs used to wine and dine, wheel and deal for decades.
It's now just a lonely strip in the giant China Town.
12
The worst part of this reality TV show that we are now all a part of, is that everyone knows that Trump is dirty. There is no real push back on that concept, even from his supporters. Everyone assumes that Cohen or the accountant have the goods, and Trump acts like, indeed, they do.
Our "great" democratic system, that we are all taught in school to be so proud of, could not screen out a two-bit crook from getting to be the president, the guy with the access to the bombs and money and bully pulpit.
I'm not sure the system as it was drawn up is useful anymore. It was made for a different time, and there is no practical or political way to change it in the Divided States of America today. Maybe the next framers will do a better job...
28
Sorry, The Don couldn't play the role of a mobster in a terrible B-movie gangster film. He might be suitable for James Arness's role in "The Thing". He could play a creature on fire. He's halfway there on the skin tone. RAW
11
“Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda. “Hannah Arendt.
11
James B. Comey, whom President Trump startlingly fired as F.B.I. director over "the Russia thing" in what may well turn out to be an obstruction of justice, knows more than most people about prosecuting mobsters -- including the Gambino crime family -- from his years as a major force in the renowned U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.
Mr. Comey, based on his private meetings with the president, has written about the Trump-gangster parallel in this way: "I thought of New York Mafia social clubs. ... The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, great and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and above the truth."
While the outsize Comey ego has, at times, left him open to criticism for being a bit of a prima donna and not staying in his lane, there's no question that when it comes to federal law enforcement, he knows precisely what he's talking about. And, as history would have it, he's also a longtime colleague and friend of Robert Mueller's.
As Preet Bharara -- who, like Mr. Comey, also was a highly successful U.S. attorney for the Manhattan-based Southern District and also was the sudden victim of a Trump firing -- is fond of saying: Stay tuned.
101
The cornfield scene from 'Casino' seems a more appropriate ending for this movie. Cold, calculated and unimaginative moral rot. There is not one redeeming quality in the whole bunch.
34
Trump has certainly presented himself as a clumsy Tony Soprano, although even Soprano managed to have only one marriage, but I suspect that, ultimately, Trump is really an Icarus figure. The ego is often the undoing of a person, and Trump ran for president purely out of ego. I think it will be shown to be the biggest mistake of his life, like a burglar buying sneakers that light up. The question really is, how much damage will he have been allowed to do before his big fall?
8
I found the reference to Clint Eastwood interesting, as the president's supporters seem to view him as the Dirty Harry of politics. I haven't seen that film in 30 years, but I don't remember Detective Callahan as a narcissist and a crybaby who reacts to any difficulty by wallowing in self-pity.
18
This is not a joke. The Trump White House is turning the US of A into the US of T (United States of Trump). And Planet Earth may be becoming Planet Trump, soon.
Seriously, Maureen, what are we going to do about Trumpism?
We have to come up with specific strategies and make them work.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I suggest that Democrats hold "idea contests" to find the best strategies for winning the House and taking back the White House.
Trump is no joke!
15
@Harry Pearle It's not the White House, it's all those congressional districts that need taking back right now. Focusing on White House Electoral Strategies was/is the big mistake of the the Democratic Party. State legislatures too. Work it from the ground up, not the top down.
36
@Here we go
I think we need to work it, both top down and bottom up.
Trump has"brilliantly" created a megaphone with his Tweets, etc, that dominates the media, daily. He tends to drown out, everyone else.
So, again, I suggest "idea contests" for Democratic campaigns. Past strategies will not do. Daily drama is needed
"goomah". I had to look it up... but it sure fits. Trump is maybe more "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" than "The Godfather", but he's definitely a wanna-be gangster. The problem is that Trump is doing a mob takedown on the USA, looting the assets, gutting the company, and he will leave an empty shell when he's done.
15
Agree. But its hardly a novel perpsective. When Ivanka married Jared, it was the third generation mob to mob family marriage. Same values as first generation mob, just buried under some sanitized prep school veneer.
158
This is consistent with his deep admiration for Putin. A tough guy who's a danger to all.
6
Great opinion piece Maureen. So glad you finally woke up and turned a blind eye to celebrity. The Donald has been a bad apple for decades and his misdeeds need to be publicly aired.
29
And for the grand finale, I'm just waiting for The Don to wander around in bathrobe and slippers, feigning insanity.
93
It wouldn’t be feigning!
@Bigsister
Don't think there's a need for feigning.
D'Antonio's statement regarding Trump's honesty hits at the heart of the Trump worldview: everyone lies, cheats, steals, and skims off the top. Therefore, in his darkview of human beings he's simply the most honest president in the history of America because he lies and cheats constantly for the whole world to see, therefore he's the most honest to ever grace the White House grounds. Trump simply rips and picks at the thin veneer of civilization that Freud referenced. Our reflections in Trump's mirror; there is no truth.
11
Those are three of my favorite movies, too. I guess if you hate Trump, you have to criticize everything about him.
At some point in our lives, most of us come to grips with who we are or - more importantly - what we are not. We may or may not like it, but on some level, most accept it, in varying degrees. Trump is not one of those guys.
Trump was always going to be a thug. Trump had wealth, looks, and connections although he is anything but the sharpest knife in the drawer. But he was born to be a thug; he has always been nothing but a thug, and he will die a thug. Nothing is going to change that. Trump’s problem is that he never accepted who he was.
There's an old saying with politicians: lying to people is bad, but lying to yourself is when you get into real trouble. Clinton lied about Lewinsky, but not to himself. That's who he always was, and he was comfortable with that, as inexcusable as it was.
Bush lied about the Iraq because he and the evangelicals always wanted a religious crusade. 911 provided the pretext; WMD provided the opportunity, and facts were not going to get in the way of some religious fervor. And so he lied - both to the country and to himself - about the WMD.
Trump wanted to be President because he did not want people to think that he was a thug. But it is difficult to change who you truly are - and Trump is a thug. And so he is lying to us, but much more importantly, to himself. He - and by implication the country - is out of control, which is what makes him (like W before him) such an existential threat to the nation.
25
Ms.Dowd’s column seems to capture the essence of this sorry bunch of Trump’s family, extending out to Michael(Tom Hagen) Cohen, Eric as Fredo, Don Jr. as Sonny, Ivanka as Connie and Jarod as Michael.
But Donald could never be The Don like Marlon Brando because he never commanded the respect of the elite legitimate families in New York like a Godfather with mobsters. Unlike Don Corelone, Trump chased women like Sonny and that was an infamnia.
But like so many other would-be kingpins, Trump will fall to his corruption and incompetence whether it is on the national stage in an election or In the more unlikely setting of a state or federal prison.
20
"What did an actor who has brilliantly portrayed mobsters make of a president who was doing a two-bit imitation of a mobster?"
Great line! Easily, worth a years subscription on its own.
Trump's story seems to be more of a Bildungsroman. He's still searching for approval and an identity. Since his daddy dealt with unsavory characters, Trump is modeling himself as one. "Here Dad! Look what I can do. I can squirm with the best of them!"
For some reason, he doesn't know any better. That's our problem. We the public need to teach him! Ugly is not better!
7
Please. It's a massive insult to those cinematic crime families to compare them to these bumbling burglers. If the Corleones acted this entitled and covered their tracks this poorly, they would have been out of business but he end of Godfather 1.
Literally the only thing propping up Trump's house of cards is the complicit GOP, and it seems that everyday more of them are implicated in Trump's treason, as well. When it flips, it's going to flip fast. Ryan's leaving for a reason.
21
It’s becoming increasingly apparent, with Michael Cohen’s bombshell disclosure about Don Trump’s knowledge of the infamous Trump Tower meeting in June 2016, that a very strong “circumstantial case for collusion with Russia” can be made against the Don! Taken together with his July 27, 2016 public pronouncement - asking Russia’s help in finding Hillary Clinton’s missing 30,000 emails, which was immediately heeded by the Russian GRU on that very day per the recent Mueller indictment of 12 Russian GRU officials - the case gets even stronger.
Then in October 2016 we had Wikileaks in conjunction with Roger Stone and Guccifer 2.0 (a Russian troll) coordinate the release of DNC emails on the same day that the Don’s Access Hollywood tape became public,
Also, just prior to the Trump Tower meeting, the Don had publicly boasted about revealing a whole lot of info on the Clintons - which was what had been promised by the Russians at the meeting! The circumstantial case is strong based on just all of this information in the public domain. Mueller must have so much more - if I was the Don, I’d be afraid, very afraid!
16
Trump is the fantasy; Mueller is the reality.
When they intersect ...
23
I don't get it. Articles such as this and others show that we have all we need to convict Trump and his lackeys yet, indictment is nowhere to be seen. Have we lost our mojo?
10
"Trump’s like a mobster, D’Antonio said, in the sense that he “does not believe that anyone is honest."
If that's a characteristic of mobsters generally, in Trump it is wildly exaggerated due to his five alarm narcissism. The man is the king of projection to the degree that almost every single thing he says about someone else refers to something he's no doubt heard about himself, has done, is doing or aspires to do, such as hacking an election by proxy.
Of course, it's also possible that he's such a talented con artist and so delusional, solipsistic and dopey that he even gets over on himself. "Hey, if I said it, it must be true. I have to counter this injury by beating my enemies to it."
10
Trump is going to know how Capone felt when the accountants nailed him. Trump lies like a rug, but numbers don't. I can only hope that Mueller has every forensic accountant in Washington and New York working on this case. Tax fraud, I believe, is an impeachable offense.
7
"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."
-Mark Twain
Trump's got a lot of remembering to do.
13
@cherrylog754
Trump doesn't know or care what the truth is.
1
The right-wing will fluff-off any perceived slight by the left. It is precisely because the left reacts to the right, why they continue their success. If you ask the Right, the president is doing great. So how about a score, NYT? A score that gives factual points to work accomplished - which begins with goodwill won BY ALL AMERICANS. Republican policies will immediately fail. (except war-mongering and treasury-killing tax cuts - those will get good scores).
2
~ “He’s turning America into Mulberry Street in the ’20s, where you meet your co-conspirators in the back of the candy store.”~
Crimes were, and are, being committed in real time and in plain sight. We should not give trump too much credit for the ability to cover his tracks in terms of what is turning out to be a conspiracy to use Russian help to win the 2016 election (and more). In other words, the “no one would do something THAT illegal” or “conspiracy happens behind closed doors” (or a Candy Store) does not apply here.
Remember, trump was not supposed to win the election and so the lengths to which he would (illegally) stoop knew no bounds and he certainly was not constrained by calculating the likelihood of being caught committing a crime. This was a free-wheeling criminal enterprise that did not heed stop signs much less the criminal statutes because….they had nothing to lose. If he lost the election he would complain that the was rigged, but no one would go after him for conspiracy.
So, crimes were committed in plain sight. It is as simple as that. Everyone watched in real time and it continues in real time.
Lock him up.
41
Dear Reader: What have we learned from this mafia like ordeal? Like survivors of a war, will we hold dear the democracy we fought to save? In November vote the Trumpicans out. Our children and grandchildren deserve the chance to thrive.
7
This piece hardly scratches the surface. I shudder to think how a man who has had multiple business dealings with mobsters is now sitting in the White House (when not costing us taxpayers a mint by decamping to his own properties). For hard evidence of Trump's friendly relations with criminals, I recommend my current bedtime reading: David Cay Johnston's The Making of Donald Trump. Members of the Genovese and Gambino crime families are recurring characters and Felix Sater, once of the Russian mafia, gets a chapter to himself.
13
Just read a book written 30+ years ago (before DJT was on the radar) by a Doctor Ramen (psychiatrist I think) who observed that 'psychopaths and sociopaths never suffer burnout' because to do so you need a conscience. The fact that DJT is always energized (tweeting at 4AM), and calls his opponents 'low energy' is consistent w/ the book's observation. Zero conscience sociopath, like most mobsters.
14
...and let us never forget that it was Candidate Trump's triumphant claim, "I could shoot someone of fifth avenue and I wouldn't lose a vote."--and so it is that his criminal affectations and blatantly lawless behavior have the effect of attracting virtually half of our god fearing, gun loving, patriotic citizens, and their criminal loving Republican party. It's going to take more than Eliot Ness, Sam Ervin, and the United States Cavalry to save our nation from this guy, his gang, his fawning toadies, and his national fan club.
23
This is your gangster government at work - there is absolutely no way to describe it any other way.
You have the payoffs and the bribes. You have the pressure on individuals and the elimination. You have the in the darkness of night secret meetings and the below the radar ties to shady individuals. You even have the cheap fitting and gaudy suits and ties. (made overseas of course)
Soon, one is going to roll on anther and that will be that.
6
“He and Melania model their squints on Eastwood,” the biographer noted.
I think that imperious look of Donald Trump is modeled more along that of George C. Scott in “ Patton”.
Now that he is Commander in Chief and planning a military parade this Fall, don’t be surprised to see Trump in a military uniform replete with a gold helmet and swagger stick if his party is successful in the November elections.
21
Btw, the dirt that Trump's team said wasn't forthcoming at the infamous Russian meeting in Trump Tower, was (also) delivered by Putin himself in front of the entire world at his joint press conference with Trump where Putin mentioned dirt on Hilary when demanding US officials and persons be handed over to him for interrogation by Russians. It's all hiding in plain sight.
26
If he flips on the Russians, he is toast. And he knows it. That is why he is doing everything he can to stop anyone from interfering in the Russian efforts at hacking the next election.
24
Trump, this week, expressed indignation that Michael Cohen had secretly recorded him, as if that put his longtime lawyer on the wrong side of the law.
So, Donald, what kind of lawyer tapes their client?
A savvy lawyer who knows better than to trust a lying, sleazy, con man who throws people under a bus the second it suits him.
In retrospect, Cohen's public statements about being willing to take a bullet for Donald Trump seem less like the actions of a hopeless doormat than of a clever person who knows how to put on a front, but would not let himself be brought down by a lowlife.
And, of course, Trump is the one who made his own problems.
26
At least Tony Soprano had some endearing qualities. I can't find any in Trump.
13
@RJ, there must be sonsomething about trump that’s makes media like Nyt want to obsess about him. Just count the number of times his name is printed in today’s newspaper!
1
Cheating,fixing and lying. A perfect description of Trump’s White House. It seems unimaginable that gangster movies become the basis for evaluating the Trump team. And yet this column nails it.To quote POTUS. So sad.
15
What is clearly wrong about Trump is his coldness, absence of any gesture of affection, towards his son.
9
What were the other two films in the Top 5? “Triumph of the Will”? “House of Wicked”? “Network”?
"He’s turning America into Mulberry Street in the ’20s, where you meet your co-conspirators in the back of the candy store.”
DT is not turning America into anything. It was there before. You Ms Dowd and the millions of fellow voters who chose to vote for him in November 2016 made it the official face of the USA.
Not proud anymore of your great job? How about starting educating the kids and providing affordable health care to everyone?
13
He thinks he's Robert Deniro but he'll always be Joe Pesci. He's the clown without any impulse control. The sociopath who overreacts to slights, can't control his temper and thinks that others are afraid of him because he's tough not because he's nuts. I urge anyone who still follows him to think twice because at any moment he can change from laughing with you to stabbing you in the back. In other words "Leave the bum, take the cannolis."
24
“…Trump’s like a mobster…in the sense that he “does not believe that anyone is honest. He doesn’t believe that your motivations have anything to do with right and wrong and public service. It’s all about self-interest and a war of all against all…
Sounds more like a K Street Lobbyist – or an all-too typical entrenched and corrupt ringleader of a filthy frontier town, or an all-too typical entrenched and corrupt police force and commissioner whose burg and decent people living therein needed deliverance by Eastwood…
Neart to the end, after the shooting was done, all the man had was big hair, a few things – some non sequitur – to say, and a horse or a Galaxy to beat his exit…
The squinting was not about Eastwood’s aversion to killing, even as movie-acting…He’d desperately wanted the role of Howard Roark – but was told he was too young and too wide-eyed for the part, which went to Gary Cooper…
Thus rejected, he never fully opened his eyes again…
9
Clever musings from one of our most gifted journalists. I am more reminded of the buffoons on the pages of Jimmy Breslin's masterpiece, "The Gang the couldn't Shoot Straight." Chaos, anger, complaining, constant lying, bungled crimes, all lietmotiefs we see now whenever Trump or his interpreter Sarah Huckabee Sanders snarls before the TV cameras.
9
"What do you mean I'm funny? Funny, how, like a clown? I amuse you?" - Joe Pesci
Trump: the big star of his own fantasy world.
Trump has no realistic idea how people see him. The bleached comb over, the phony tan, the awful baggy suits, the yelling, the smirking. Lumbering around the White House helicopter pad while the press shouts questions at him because he's scared to hold a press conference: behold 'the leader of the free world.'
Trump failed as a wise guy so we're stuck with him playing a wise guy president. Remember him shoving the P.M. of Montenegro? Trump refuses any & all accountability, there's always somebody he can blame, feud with, threaten. There's always a lie he can tell.
What's missing here: when has this guy ever done a lick of work as president? Never. We all know Trump wants to "hit the campaign trail 6-7 days a week" (on our dime!) so he can stand in front a live audience & yak about himself. Trump never does anything that's not about himself.
We keep hearing Mueller keeps his head down & works tirelessly 7 days a week. When the big confrontation comes, who wins? The loudmouth fake mob boss who's never done a lick of work, can't trust his associates? Or the guy who led a platoon of Marines in Vietnam, ran the F.B.I 10 years, earned the respect & loyalty of everyone who served with him?
They say Trump refuses to prepare.
Too late to start now, buddy.
"You can't say you were never warned." (Dr. Krakower to Carmela Soprano).
16
Trump will want the movie to end with a bang. Scary.
11
Let's be clear. The inner circle around Trump is no Rat Pack. The Rat Pack had a likeable side. They were funny and knew how to be engaging. They were fascinating. They wanted the feeling of seeing themselves as dangerous. They were an entertainment. They also, of course, had a dark side and were not a group to emulate in many respects, but they were not trying to ruin the country. Trump's inner circle is totally lacking in humor (which by the way shows how inhuman they are). Their leader is a no-talent wannabe.
6
A few months ago Michael Cohen was a good man and an honest lawyer. Now he is a dishonest rat who has been lying for years. This sounds familiar to anyone who followed the prosecution of mafia bosses in NYC. Will DJT be able to convince a jury that there is a reasonable doubt? Even supporters of the Don should be in favor of a resignation or impeachment so we can see it played out in court. What a show!
11
As is customary with Ms. Dowd, this is very entertaining, but not necessarily convincing. Trump is by and large a successful president. The desperation to come up with a scandal is an implicit recognition of that fact.
3
And Al Capone was a successful mobster - until he wasn't.
2
@Mike Livingston
Yes, successful in embarrassing our entire country.
2
@Mike Livingston Depends on your definition of "successful." If one views the presidency as a being like a sporting match, then I suppose Trump's presidency could be seen as successful. But if one is serious and understands the gravity of the job, the long-term impacts, understands American Civics, etc., Trump has been a catastrophic failure, in my opinion. Republicans, and now Trump supporters, have a bizarre arrogance about them, declaring themselves to be the "real Americans", declaring that "Public opinion shows (fill in the blank)", which "public opinion" being their, minority, view, etc., etc., etc. In my opinion, Trump is a disgrace, an embarrassment, but mostly a fraud whose only asset really is a very pliable and cult-like base, eager to buy what he is selling.
While new crimes are exposed each day, one of the biggest was buried after a brief notice. Trump's Secty of Treasury allows 'dark money' to be passed to GOP campaigns without revealing the source.
So, Putin and others can give the NRA and the RNC as much as is needed to sway our elections while remaining in the background.
On the other hand, the Dems are forced to disarm unilaterally by refusing PAC money in favor of individual contributions that have seriously low limits. This to convince the electorate that they are honest. not part of the mob.
The 'mob' is firmly in control though. McConnell and Ryan aiding the Don and Putin.
60
Yes, the D's style and class are lower than anything I've ever seen. As a world-class negotiator with responsibility for more than forty Buyers and $ 600-million in raw materials. I would fire Trump in less than heartbeat , based on his lack skill and apparent disinterest in learning; anything. We can find some lessons from the consequences of this behavior by examining those ends in the lives of Bugsy Siegel. Willie Moretti, Maranzani,et al.
29
I just don't get why people keep saying he's rich.
Maybe they need to believe it to justify their pretending to like him?
Come on, who actually, really, likes him?
Judging by his popular vote count and inauguration crowd, not many at all.
38
The bottom line is that people basically knew what they were getting - so it's a pointless discussion. He has no political or diplomatic finesse. All he is concerned with is how he is perceived by others. And in regard to the Helsinki press conference that really says it all. He was more concerned about how he was perceived by Putin than by everybody else. He must be so very deeply compromised.
57
Maureen I think you do mobsters a disservice when you compare Trump to them. There maybe honor among thieves, but no honor with Trump. I am convinced that Trump will sell his own family (certainly Eric, anyway) to protect himself.
I am a strong Democrat and was glad to see Trump get the GOP nomination, both because I thought he would be easy to beat, and because I thought, that if he was elected, he would be much more moderate than the rest of the GOP ilk. How wrong I was. Clearly Trump will do anything that will protect or enhance his political and financial interests. Trump makes Nixon look like an altar boy. Fortunately, Trump is not nearly as smart as Nixon, and this hopefully this will soon lead to his demise. Then I guess we will have to deal with a more traditional GOP extremist in Pence.
45
Cary Grant or Gary Cooper?
4
"He doesn’t believe that your motivations have anything to do with right and wrong and public service."
That sums him up: he's always looking for the angle, always on the take, so, of course, everybody else is as well.
As my late great Gramma used to say: "stay away from bad-minded people". Trump is one of those bad-minded people.
39
The Donald and his loyalists make regular mobsters look like good guys. It’s hard to imagine Don and his loyalists getting away with enriching themselves while disregarding the rule of law and disregarding common decency.
19
While “turning America into Mulberry Street in the ’20s,” Trump is recreating Hollywood in the ‘30s. The story surrounding him contains several sets of characters familiar from Depression-era movies, with a twist in one of them.
First there’s polite society, represented to Trump now by the leaders of democratic countries the way it has long been represented to him by the real thing: the upper reaches of New York society. Lacking the natural dignity to fit in wherever he goes, he compensates with brashness.
Then there’s the gangster milieu. This is represented to Trump now by dictators and demagogues the way it has long been represented by — the real thing. Lacking the toughness to hold his own, he positions himself as a hanger-on and amuses the gang with a flow of gaudy patter.
Last comes the set with the twist: the little people writ large. In 30s movies, you can always count on regular guys and gals to see through phonies, share with the less fortunate, and pitch in to foil any assault on democracy. Rural people particularly are too wise to be taken in by crooked city slickers. Fall for the likes of Donald Trump? Nobody but the village, er, exception.
Eighty years on, the real-life population of exceptions has turned out to be just a little too big.
33
We are where we are because of people who think in terms of celebrities.
I wish they'd stop and get serious.
101
Ms. Dowd supported this guy for prez, as anyone who read her columns knows.
320
@gnowell no she didn’t however I can see how you get that impression with her unfair criticism of Hillary!
1
Mo, I do not understand your 180-degree flip on Trump.
Are you trying to make a false course correction after your brown nosing and glorifying of the guy while you were damning the Clintons before the November election ???
The hypocrisy of your silence on this is so foul it reeks !!!
640
Maureen, did you really vote for Trump? I know several people who sadly gave that horrible human being their valuable vote.
Most of them refuse to talk about politics at all anymore. Oh well.
It's going to be between yourself and GOD to try to explain that
one; being that Trump was obviously a sexist, a liar and a racist. Sad.
No one's perfect but America needs to get smarter or it's doomed.
Mueller is going to have his hands full but he seems to be quite smart, from what many people have said. This is a World Wide Criminal Enterprise that all of the Trump's and their Minions are involved with. All of them. No one should go free after this HELL. NO ONE.
257
Don't forget that Trump had a known mobster at his New Years Eve party and Mar-a-Lago and brought him up on the stage to give him a trophy.
114
Trump would never survive as a gangster. He doesn't know when to shut up. He doesn't know how to compromise. And he has no self control. What Trump and the entire GOP need is to repeat kindergarten and to take etiquette lessons. Then they might be presentable in company.
What we have now is bunch of wannabe strongmen running the country into the ground when it comes to civil rights, common decency, and democracy. This is what we get when we let power hungry, image driven rich people run the country: bad decisions, temper tantrums, etc.
396
@hen3ry
I agree with your comment in large measure. However, I differ somewhat with your conclusion. I think the real culprit here is the dumbing down of America. Sure, its the wealthy and the mass media that constructed that end, but its 'we the people' that allowed it to happen.
We live in a country where the Kardashian's have extraordinary fame and wealth. For what reason, I have no idea. Is there anyone out there that will tell me its due to their intellect? I doubt it, yet that's who people look up to. They want to be like them, dress like them, and be unable to think an intelligent thought, just like them. Given that, should anyone really wonder how we wound up with a moronic reality TV star like Trump running the show?
We feed our children junk for the brain and the body, whiling away the hours texting and playing video games. I almost never see a young person reading a book anymore. However, I guess when Trump finally orders all the books be burned that won't matter much anyway.
So here's a simple solution... for the next Presidential election, let's make it mandatory that all candidates take a elementary school level spelling test. Forget all this arguing, the despicable Fox News propagandizing, the lie after lie by this wannabe dictator clown. Just give Trump a mandatory pass/fail spelling quiz and the idiot son will be gone once and for all.
4
Mr. Mueller is circling around Mr. Trump and his Family but has not touched them. I am afraid it may end at the circle with few collateral guys in jail and Trumps will escape unscathed. Democrats are euphoric on mid-terms, but with economy surging, it may just end like 2016.
34
@FS: But part of the economic surge is various companies buying up metal before the tariffs go into effect, which will not be part of this quarter's economic picture. And the news about this quarter's economic picture will be coming out just before the midterm elections.
54
How is the economy surging. The same third of the economic spectrum is raking off the benefits of the massive deficit spending. The rest of the income spectrum is seeing no gains.
2
Let me add my little tidbit of Trump lore.
When I moved back to NYC in 1994, I wrote my first murder mystery play for a company (now defunct) that had provided the fabrics for Trump’s Taj Mahal. As there was quite a bit of shady business around that deal, I entitled the murder mystery “Trump l’Oeil,” revolving it around the misdeeds of the title character. We feigned a murder with blood in the Central Park Boathouse and an actual ambulance came to take the body away (there was money to burn in those days.) We hired an actor to impersonate Trump (whose career has seen a significant revival of late!) and another to play Marla Maple Syrup (it was THAT time). If you had told me that the man who was a punchline in my murder mystery was going to be the President of the United States, I would have split my sides with a incredulity and even more laughter.
140
Maureen Dowd writes as an if she didn't vote for Trump.
She proudly voted for him.
Until she addresses this monumental issue in her life and addresses her readership about this her articles are meaning less.
I truly find it incredible how people just go on in the face of such a disastrous decision in one's life.
Doesn't she think she owes herself and her readers an explanation.
1005
@Ellen:how do we know who she voted for? yes,she is a known celebrity hound,
but it is hard for me to believe that she
would actually vote for such a man.
5
@Ellen Proof of your assertion that Dowd voted for Trump? I suspect you are confusing her with her brother.
@Ellen
I did not know that she voted for Trump. That is obscene from what was once a progressive writer. When did the worm turn, Maureen? I will never read another word of hers.
1
I live in Oklahoma. We were third on the list of states that went for Trump. It's not uncommon to hear people 'round these parts exclaim about how much Donald Trump is doing for them. "Finally," I heard a retired carpet installer say, "a President who really cares about people like me."
Ah yes. We all love that line from the Godfather when Don Corleone says, "Revenge is a dish best served cold, and chicken fried steak and cream gravy is a dish best served piping hot."
When it's all said and done, with Trump's long list of deplorable acts never quite being completely exposed and the gavel having struck on what can be prosecuted, the one tour de force we'll never be able to take away from Donald Trump -- a grotesque looking, speaking, and double-dealing mobster from a gold-plated aerie in Manhattan -- is how he made people who he wouldn't bother to scrape off his shoe if he stepped on them think he cared about and was working for them.
641
@Charlotte Amalie True. And exposing that fundamental lie is paramount. But I don't hear or see that counter-narrative.
I'll say it again & again: Fox News is key to the propaganda and its longevity..
30
@Charlotte Amalie I often amuse myself by wondering how those people who bought into the "blue collar billionaire who is just like us" would fare if they rolled up uninvited to Mar-a-Lago or one of his other properties in the family 4X4 and tried to use the restroom, let alone contact the Don-ald. They still don't get they are rally props for his ego and consumers for his cheap line of products, and that's it. His loyalties begin and end with himself.
65
@Charlotte Amalie When you tell people what they want to hear, they tend to believe you.
5
We watched 1949 version of "All the King's Men" this afternoon. It starred Broderick Crawford and is about a fictional "Willy Stark's" rise to power. I recommend it as required viewing. The similarities between Trump and Stark are amazing.
115
@Jackie
No way is Trump like Willie Stark.
1)Stark was poor, put himself through school & worked hard. Trump had a rich daddy & there is no indication he ever worked hard.
2) Stark initially did care about the little guy, and even at the end he told himself he was acting to help the little guy, though he had become so obsessed with power that the people's interest got lost. Trump never cared about anybody but Trump.
12
@Jackie
No. Stark retained some semblance of integrity.
2
The key difference between Willie Stark and Trump is that Stark started out with some idealistic goals and trying to do right. trump has never had a care or disinterested goal for anyone his whole career.
Never saw the movie, but "All the King's Men" is one of the greats of American literature.
4
Seating is limited.
From the moment of our nation's founding through the present day, those who set the nation up did it in a manner that they and others of wealth would run the show. It has always been the same. We like most people throughout the world live under the sacred heel of wealth.
It is not, as Protagoras opined long ago, that man is the measure of all things. Money has become the voice and the measure.
And the table is small.
91
@Ian MacFarlane. Opportunity abounds to sit at the table
Nicely said. The current mafia-like government seems, finally, to Trump's liking, as he was able to oust those still with the guts to tell him all the nonsense he was entertaining, given his confusion of fact from fiction, and assuming that the truth was what he said it was. Surrounding himself with a cadre of robotic misfits to parrot his lies is, by now, 'fait accompli', however noxious for the rest of us.
80
Mobster movies bore me so I don't have comparisons to cite.However, Trump's insistence on absolute loyalty and obsequiousness is pathological and at odds with anything in our Constitution.He never heard the quotation,"ask not what your country can do for you, ask instead what you can do for your country." He asks every day what his country can do for him!
161
@Janet Michael
Naturally so. He , and most Americans have never heard the Kennedy call to duty: they only heed Saint Ronnie's call to what's in it for me?
5
Yes. Yes and yes. Of course he is "mobbed up." But the most powerful mobs these days are not those in The Bronx or Queens, but those that originated in Russia. Trump sold out to those powerful oligarchs years ago when he needed money and now the pas de deux is playing out on the world stage. In the end, I suspect, his Russian handlers will hang him out to dry when he no longer serves their needs.
638
@Clyde I did chuckle when Pooti-poot turned down his invitation to come to the White House this fall.
2
"What kind of lawyer tapes his client?" asked Trump of Michael Cohen.
The kind who represents creeps like Trump.
I have requested my detectives to investigate many parties on the other side of a case I was handling. Once I asked them to investigate my OWN client, because he seemed very thuggish and dangerous, even though he was a paraplegic.
I discovered that he became paraplegic after he tried to rip off another drug dealer, who shot him in the spine.
I stopped representing him after that. Cohen is right to do the same.
155
@ed connor The kind of lawyer who would tape a client is the kind of lawyer who doesn't trust his client, and needs evidence on hand "just in case" his client decides to turn on him and run him over with a truck. With the exception of certain dictators, Trump has proven no loyalty to his "friends" and would turn on them in a heartbeat. Therefore, sad to say, taping him in order to obtain incriminating evidence was a good idea. Yes, it goes against lawyerly ethics, but I would bet that very few lawyers of Cohen's caliber actually want to go to jail instead of their criminal clients.
11
All fine and dandy. But meanwhile Rome burns. Currently the Republicans are doing everything they can to confirm Kavanaugh. If history serves, his previous policies would allow Trump to walk. On the plus side, publications will have another 6 years of characterizing the current administration and selling revenue. The mafia will look pretty petty compared to little rocket man and the world cup host with the most and their unfettered assault and the vote counting of our elections. Say a prayer for the United States. We'll need it.
133
"Trump’s like a mobster, D’Antonio said, in the sense that he “does not believe that anyone is honest. He doesn’t believe that your motivations have anything to do with right and wrong and public service. It’s all about self-interest"
If so, then Trump is right about the political class in DC. That has the rarest of exceptions, and many doubt the exceptions, not the rule.
It certainly describes all 16 of the other Republican candidates. I think it describes Hillary too.
13
@Mark Thomason: Regardless, we all need to keep looking for those exceptions. And Trump isn't clearly one of them. He was the dirtiest and most dishonest pile of garbage ever delivered to the White House and the stain has been growing worse every day since his arrival there.
243
@stu freeman -- Yes. We are in desperate need of finding that exception. It would make all the difference. It would name an era. The potential trembles on the edge of actualization.
I wonder that it hasn't happened already. We are politically constipated.
@Mark Thomason
It describes most New York pols and all Chicago pols.
The essential question is Donald Trump right that a large portion of Americans are motivated mainly by greed and self-interest?
The mid-term elections will be a real litmus test-- although I would add sloth.
56
if only he had watched" A Man For All Seasons"
when he was coming of age. he would have
learned some thing about honor and principle
in the face of not only political expediency,
but in the face of death itself. even now maybe
it would change his approach to life,the way it
has many others,myself included.
64
@Frank
He would have taken away from that play and film far different conclusions from yours.
4
@Frank He isn't capable of learning, not in any but the most superficial sense. And "honor" and "principle" are utterly foreign concepts to him - always have been, always will be.
8
@Frank He would have labelled Thomas More as a loser. Remember, this is the man* who said McCain was not a hero..."I like people who weren't captured."
Trump should spend five years in the Hanoi Hilton!
3
One thing is for certain in MHO: the tone of the commentary in the Press has changed dramatically in the last week. Its gist is that Trump doesn't just act like a mobster, he IS a mobster, and the momentum of the investigations has turned to offense rather than defense.
It feels as if the investigations are in their end game and we are about to learn all (most) of the facts.
The timing is interesting too, considering the mid-terms being but 100 days out. The difficulty of the effort to bring down this mobster is nearly unfathomable. So the methodology of doing so will also be interesting to learn as this unfolds.
Stay tuned.
156
How did get here and how are we going to get out? In the movies and in reality there is no way out for mobsters.
Wonderful column Ms. Dowd.
An interesting note I recently saw: Should Trump pardon Cohen he can still be called to testify and cannot invoke the Fifth Amendment, although if so we can only hope that Cohen speaks truth.
57
Or that Cohen doesn't meet an unexplainable fatal accident.
1
"When the boss says push a button on a guy... ."
Was David Pecker Trump's "Willie Cicci"?
http://godfather.wikia.com/wiki/Willie_Cicci .
14
In the mobster movies, the locals in the neighborhoods where they ruled, always supported them. They did so because there was little to no street crime. Of course the tribute that was was paid to them was not considered. They also loved their mobsters because they stuck it to the man. The mobsters stood up to the corrupt establishment.
This is exactly Trump's playbook. His people love him for standing up to what they consider the corrupt establishment even though the Trump gang is itself corrupt, just like the mobsters. They love him because Trump is supposedly making the streets better and safer for them. He isn't, but that's what they believe.
Trump truly does act like a gangster and his people support him just like in the movies. The now departed teflon Don was a hero to his neighborhood. The cops couldn't pin anything on him. Trump lies constantly, flip flops constantly, trashes every institution of government and ruins decades old relationships with our allies. And he keeps getting away with it.
But eventually, the teflon Don ended up in jail. Perhaps the same fate awaits the gangster in the White House.
395
@Bruce Rozenblit Trump acts much like two other shady characters who were from Harlem and were able to insure the population of Harlem were loyal-Frank Lucas and Bumpy Johnson.
In time, the grifter will lose the aura that makes those revere him. And Sammy the Bull will be there to help take him down.
3
@Bruce Rozenblit,
Imagine this scenario:Preet Bharara run and win NYS AG and wait for Trump to leave office and start hammering him for a long list of crimes.
Even if Mueller failed to get him, Preet will hound him mercilessly.
1
Yeah, but he was still a better bet for the country than was Hillary, eh Ms. Dowd? But perhaps you can entitle your next tome "Of Lawyers and Liars," considering Giuliani's recent comment that Michael Cohen has been "a liar all his life"- which is contrary not only to Rudy's previous opinion of him but also flies in the face of The Donald's history of employing and confiding in him over the course of these many years.
451
Trump has no strategic plans. He is throwing every dart he can, hoping when Mueller reveals him as a money-laundering compromised con artist that his base will be so mesmerized by his indecipherable actions, they will stand by him and against The Deep State that does not exist. All in all Barnum was right.
317
@Chris, it was not Barnum, but Lincoln, who said "you can fool all of the people some of the time ...."
It is Trump, like Barnum who lives it.
2
@Bar Code Ranch Barnum is credited with saying "There's a sucker born every minute." I took Chris to be referring to that. Me, I think the apt quotation to explain POTUS Trump is Mencken's, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." A sort of double-negative, if you will.
Trump has been a gangster his whole life, along with his racist and mobbed up dad.
Your colleague Brett Stephens just suggested that we defeat Trump by following the rules. Here is how we accomplish that task:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9KBOhPXhds
48
@Mike Roddy
Absolutely right — and one of my favorite scenes from any film
2
When I began as a stockbroker in NYC in 1982, I was given a copy of the New York City phone book and told there was only one account that I couldn't open because if the stock went down before settlement date, he wouldn't pay for the trade and I would have to personally cover the loss. In subsequent years I followed his antics in the tabloids (and especially, Spy magazine) and regretfully, I remained entertained by his weapons grade narcissism; accordingly, I feel a measure of guilt at having given him my attention back in the day, unwittingly buying advance tickets to the horror show best described as Nightmare On Pennsylvania Avenue.
663
@richard Ah, a zebra cannot change its stripes.
..."there was only one account that I couldn't open because if the stock went down before settlement date, he wouldn't pay for the trade and I would have to personally cover the loss"...
Those words of wisdom have never changed but now the lives of people and the foundation of our country are in peril.
24
@richard
Perhaps "best comment"! So artfully stated. And I, too, worked in NYC, 80-86.....the Donald was a tabloid joke at best.....jeez.....who could have guessed??!! I share your pain/guilt in having seen all the disgusting excess, narcissism, megalomania and ....dismissed it. Truly, as well taught by Roy Cohn, the most mean, vile, petty, vindictive person ever. And that's a most generous assessment.
5
"Trump’s like a mobster, D’Antonio said, in the sense that he “does not believe that anyone is honest. He doesn’t believe that your motivations have anything to do with right and wrong and public service."
These are the best lines in Maureen's Mafia hit job column because they're the truest.
Trump has such a low opinion of human nature because of the folks who've shaped him. When you're raised by Fred Trump ("Always be a killer"), tutored by Roy Cohn (no apologies, no prisoners) and inject your failing business empire with Russian mob money, you're not exactly showing you're to the manor born.
Chris Matthews likes to compare the Trumps to the Romanovs (and we know what happened to them). Everywhere Trump goes, he feels he has to drag his brat pack along (Ivanka, Jared, Don Jr., etc.)
The man who trusts nobody can't be alone for a second. The man who demands utmost loyalty only reserves his for the fruit of his loins.
As for De Niro, I think his latest role as Robert Mueller on SNL is also one of his best--better than Baldwin too.
Wouldn't it be great if the real Mueller asked the fake one to deliver the goods in person to the White House?
Talk about a role! It would certainly appeal to Trump's sense of the dramatic--and the royalties would be fantastic.
254
When I was stationed in New Jersey my GI buddy was a Sicilian from Brooklyn. He new a few people and I got to know some of them too.
One was a wrecking yard owner in Lakewood who had been given the yard as a gift for taking the rap and doing his time. I will not write his name for obvious reasons. We thought some people ended up in crushed car bodies being sent to the furnaces. tRump does not even come close to being like a member of the Association, he would be in one of those car bodies too. Why? Because he is a swindler.
I had a recent talk with a man who is also a Sicilian, his father was an accountant with Arthur Anderson. Donald the Mad tried to "negotiate about money he owed to them. But AE was able of find his ownership of the Canadian hotel and file a lien on it. This is what he did with small contractors, negotiate and force them to sue if they could afford it and wait for the suit to be heard.
One small contractor with the right connections would end his scams just as it dis with several important people. No Don the Con and his gang of thieves and corrupt appointees do not resemble any body like Lucky, Tony, or Angelo, they are too obvious, we can see them and how they operate, we just can not put them in those car bodies, too bad, because that is where they belong.
166
Dowd: "Like many on social media, he (Trump) is driven to be the star of his own movie. He even considered going to film school in L.A. before he settled into his father’s business."
Trump is clearly much more comfortable with fabrication rather than truth, so that helps explain why he looks so natural in playing the role as president rather than actually being president. If you had not told us otherwise, Ms. Dowd, I would have concluded that he did attend "film school" and excelled as a student.
31
I found myself lately wishing that the Trump Show would end just like "The Sopranos" did: with an abrupt blackout and no chance of a revival or spinoff.
And then I realized that such a blackout might spell not only the end of his organized crime spree, but of all of us. This guy has already created whole hellscape of collateral damage and misery. Will there be any turning back?
He threatens to nuke countries he doesn't like. He quit the Paris Climate accords. His nominee to head the Superfund program has made a career out of getting the polluters and poisoners of the earth off the legal hook, at great public expense. His "health" consiglieres are already plotting a mob hit on single payer health care. The thug heading HUD wants to triple the rents of the poorest tenants, while Trump's slumlord son-in-law Jared sues them for every last dime. His moll Betsy DeVos came not to oversee public education, but to destroy it.
Trump brags about GDP growth without admitting that such growth is a cancer which kills all but the richest of the ethically challenged rich. Wages continue to stagnate even in this "booming" economy.
His pathological lack of discipline and a business model built entirely of deceit are the mirror image of late-stage capitalism's pursuit of limitless wealth and power - planet and people be damned.
Not just Trump, but the whole crooked system must come down and be replaced by a moral system of government, aka democratic socialism. Our lives depend on it.
831
@Karen Garcia
"the whole crooked system must come down and be replaced by a moral system of government, aka democratic socialism. Our lives depend on it."
Not a million year Karen, regretfully.
Our Patron Class has so much power and a firm grip on the strings that control the county.
Our Bourgeoisie Class is so timid and divided. Most of them,in fact,support the WH occupant.
So only I and you and the hundreds of millions like us left, the paycheck to paycheck surviving folks.
What can we do?
20
@Karen Garcia
I never saw the tv series, but the rest of what you say makes perfect sense. In the 19th century in Russia there was a group of people called Narodniks who believed that populist type propaganda would be an effective means of stimulating the peasantry to organize in an effort to overthrow both the feudal, pre-capitalist system and the Tsarist monarchy. Though they passed into history, they could be considered the precursors of democratic socialism in what became the Soviet Union. Trump perhaps tries to capitalize on his relations with the RF, asking people to believe that his "populism" is something:"the people get...". How could anyone, them or us, be so obtuse as to think that a debtor-quasi billionaire could be acting in the interests of the people he purportedly governs. You are correct that the whole thing is a crooked lie.
62
@Karen Garcia Good to read you. You can write rings around Maureen Dowd and other NYT columnists.
38
"" ...people who prevail by cheating and fixing and lying. Trump doesn’t have the baseline intellect and experience to be proficient at governing. His proficiency is this mob style of bullying and tough-guy talk.”"
Once again Ms. Dowd, I ask you, why did you not reveal what you and Michael D'Antonio knew about trump before election 2016?
Maybe you could have made a meaningful difference if you had exposed djt for what he was/is back then.
1144
@Mary Ann Donahue
With his public comments and Twitter posts, America knew what we were getting with Orange Man. Do not make Trump's election Maureen Dowd's fault.
Recall that Hillary won the Michigan primary polls, but lost the actual election to Bernie Sanders, a warning sign that was ignored. Also, Hillary never visited Wisconsin.
2
@Mary Ann Donahue
Once again Ms. Dowd, I ask you, why did you not reveal what you and Michael D'Antonio knew about trump before election 2016?
___________
It would have changed nothing.
1
Because Dowd just tries to be really cool talking about Bill and Donny, etc
Dowd is her own movie, she’s just like Drumbo.
5
"I think he is really enchanted by base male displays of strength. Think about ‘Goodfellas’ — people who prevail by cheating and fixing and lying."
And all of them wind up dead or in jail, having been ratted out by someone close to them.
99
@NA: Except, of course, for those male displays of strength that end up with enlistment in the military. Those bone spurs were in which foot again?
73
We’ve been stuck in a Sargasso Sea of innuendo, lies, criminal wrongdoing, crotch groping, Putin rootin’, neo-Nazi salutes and general disgusting behavior for months. It could be that we’re in it too deep to ever see the surface again. It’s only a matter of time before Mueller wakes up next to a horse’s head.
Politics has always been a dirty business, but the president has plumbed new depths of depravity. The daily porn star report is something new. We’ve never had a president who defrauded students, sold mail-order meat and peddled cheap wine. You could not make this stuff up.
So thank you to all of the undiscerning, resentful and deplorable people who elevated this shabby bag man to a position of power. It’s been endlessly entertaining. It’s made it possible for the staid New York Times to print first-class vulgarities in its pages. It’s enabled us look at our neighbors and friends with suspicion, wondering whether they’re friend or foe to common sense and reason.
I learned after Katrina that it’s impossible to clean up a mess when there’s no clean place to stand. I’m afraid that the F.B.I., the various intelligence agencies, hooker lawyers and rat finks won’t produce any revelation that doesn’t just blend into the general background of filth.
I wholeheartedly second Mr. De Niro’s evaluation of the president, and hope that enough Americans wake up to the fact that the country is no longer ours. We need to take it back, by any means necessary.
1441
@gemli
I suspect Trump would be long gone from the White House if the GOP did not enable and protect him.
18
@gemli I so appreciate the intelligence, depth and creativity of most of your writing. However I am always dismayed when you sarcastically disparage tens of millions of our fellow Americans as "deplorable" and the like.
When you do this, you make Trump succeed in his evil intent to divide us. To judge in a degrading manner. And to dive into the gutter, as did De Niro, coarsely spewing his vulgarity on TV, getting right down there in the uncouth mud with our low-life president. Not exactly Thomas Paine material.
To be "undiscerning" is not a crime. As for "resentful", you seem to be share that with Trump's base, along with a great percentage of humanity. You are so great a writer, I wish you would direct your gifts to inspiring the our better angels of our nature.
6
@William Alan Shirley
Thank you for the compliment. But we're engaged in a war between sensible, humane governance and insanity, and we have to take the battle where we find it. If that's the gutter, then so be it. The president was never the problem. The problem was that our neighbors and friends looked at a horribly vile and ignorant man and put him in the Oval Office. What will become of our country if this trend continues? We're engaged in an existential struggle for our survival. Hurt feelings be damned.
Oh, the irony of Trump liking 'Goodfellas' and being ratted on by Michael Cohen playing the role of Henry Hill.
This is all funny; just, you know, not ha ha funny.
The clown show must end.
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@Kevin Rothstein
Actually, when one "David Pecker" appears as one of the leading characters in this latest chapter, the saga is ha ha funy.
5
Thus far, Donald Trump has striking similarities to John Gotti, "The Teflon Don" -- no matter how hard the feds tried, nothing stuck. Until, at long last, something did, and you can look up how the story ended.
Among Robert Mueller's -- and, for that matter, Rod Rosenstein's -- stellar qualities is patience. Thoroughness, too. So when it finally comes time for U.S. v. Trump, the smart bet won't be on the latter.
565
"As Michael Daly noted in The Daily Beast, “Traditionally, rats begin wearing a wire after they get jammed up.”
My guess is that there is no shortage of rats who have already gone too far out on a limb in service of the Don. I imagine a few of them were in the room with Cohen and Trump when he approved the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians.
Trump is notoriously careful about e-mails, saying half of his friends would be in prison if they used e-mail. But those closest to him will eventually bring his downfall. Any doubt about this can be dispelled by listening to the candid way he talked with Cohen, with others obviously in the room (get me a Coke), about paying off Karen McDougal.
And think about how many lies have been told by Sarah Sanders, Hope Hicks and others on behalf of the Don, that might create legal and professional jeopardy for them in the future.
Oh the books, movies and TV series they will sell!
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@Look Ahead "Oh the books, movies and TV series they will sell!"
At the end of each White House day, staff go home and write in their journals what will eventually be published payback for all of Trump's verbal abuse they endured.
1
If the candy store is America, then D'Antonio is right. The entire GOP, along with Trump's oligarchic clan, as co-conspirators working within our government to protect The Don and His Badfellas.
The media continues to do the same job of hijacking the national attention span to those things that will bring the most clicks online and views on the nation's airwaves, but not necessarily those things the public needs most to be alerted to.
As we learn about this peccadillo or that moral infraction, this or that conspiracy, real damage is being done to the very fabric of our social organization. Every important rule of government is being rolled as far back as can possibly be, with the intent to bring us back to the status quo ante FDR. Our nation's wealthy never accepted the New Deal. That is what is being rolled back. Trump just happens to be the president under which this plan is being carried out.
Mike Pence is no accident. He is the one who did the prep work of the transition, installing some of the most corrupt elements from the Koch-controlled states, with the approval of a corrupt Congress. Since January 2017, a dizzying number of rollbacks has been effected from the various government departments under Trump's control, and through Congress. Most Americans have no idea what is being lost.
Will Trump get away with it? Possibly
===
What Trump did while...
https://www.rimaregas.com/2018/01/07/blog42s-running-list-of-what-trump-...
404
@Rima Regas
The story very well told.
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@Rima Regas "Our nation's wealthy never accepted the New Deal. That is what is being rolled back. Trump just happens to be the president under which this plan is being carried out."
Actually, he's the president under which the rollback of the New Deal - and so much else that's right and good - is being CONSUMATED.
If I weren't a practicing atheist, my bedtime prayer would be:
Now I lay me down to sleep THANK YOU LORD FOR INVENTING BOB MUELLER.
155
@Tom Benghauser
The New Deal was instituted by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR, during his administration, from 1933-1945.
https://www.history.com/topics/new-deal
The Donald and his fixer
Were such a bonded pair
The Donald’s assignations
Received a fix with care.
Sometimes a tape recorded
Some very shady deals
If caught might mean the slammer
If a playback reveals
The Donald thought his fixer
Would always have his back,
Lay out the cash for bimbos
Even might pay him back.
The Donald now was POTUS
Done with Vlad Putin’s aid
Once with the KGB
Expecting to be paid.
A meeting in Helsinki
Many crimes were denied
The CIA had said was true
Lying, these were denied
His fixer had recorded
On tape some shady deals
Played back might mean the slammer
The thought Don’s blood congeals
241
Undoubtedly, Mo - but let's not forget the Prostrate Eight (hat tip Dana Milbank) kowtowing GOP'er legislators on the July 4th Kremlin Treason Tour to kiss the ring, begging the question:
"What did Russia and Pootie-Poot do with all the GOP'er email history they hacked and stole in 2016 ?"
https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/comey-republicans-hacked-russia/...
With all the Mariia Buttina Russian spy connections to the NRA, the National Prayer Breakfast, etc., etc., why shouldn't we believe Putin has compromised not just donny, but all the GOP'ers through the trove of emails ?
Thus the unprecedented July 4th kowtowing to our election attackers.
497
@R. Law
That is the only logical explanation for actions of the GOP that are surprisingly supportive of the destructive, abusive and out of control leadership of DJT.
3
@R. Law-The only difference between the Russian hacks of the DNC and RNC servers, is that data gleaned from the RNC was not released through Wikileaks. Why during multiple investigations into Russian hacking into U.S. voting systems and election interference--would GOP lawmakers visit Russia? Never mind that that they've been warned by U.S. intel agencies that the Russian's display of cyber security breech capability also covers electrical grid infrastructure, nuclear facilities, air traffic control and more...and their President hasn't called out this threat nor taken active national measures to address it!
Meeting in Russia and ranked A or A+ by the NRA: Sens. Richard Shelby (Ala.), Steve Daines (Mont.), John Thune (S.D.), John Kennedy (La.), Jerry Moran (Kan.) John Hoeven (N.D.), and Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas).
2
@R. Law Great point. I've been asking that question also. Why is the congress so cowering to Trump's scandals to the point that they can't even do the most routine investigations? Hopefully Mueller can shed some light. Vote November!!
1
Witnessing in real time a mafia investigation would have been infinitely less soaked in ridicule than the present predicament, if only because the characters and their relationships to each other could never approach the hyper-caricatural flair of this cast. A senile lawyer defending a quasi-senile president - who cannot speak without uttering a lie - against the former lawyer/fixer of his customer, by calling him a liar on TV... That is just one one of the wildly frequent idiotic scenes that punctuate the evolution of the Mueller investigation. You can't make a cartoon out of this. It blows away the rules of the genre.
157
@SA Trump looks more the apprentice himself every day, with only God as his tutor.
2
The psych wards of our country are packed with people who believe themselves to be larger than life, powerful, even invincible persons. They have an unshakeable faith in their own superiority. Most of them came from humble beginnings and despite their best efforts failed to improve their lot in life. In their minds, they are the wretched victims of evil villains who have unfairly dealt with them.
Trump escaped that fate by virtue of his being born into great wealth, with which he has been able to buy sycophants who massage his ego and promise loyalty. Now it must be coming clear to him that loyalty bought is not bought outright, it is mortgaged, and when the payments cease, so does the loyalty.
In 1961, when I entered graduate school at the University of Michigan, I was asked, as a prerequisite to getting a government fellowship, to swear my allegiance to the United States, and affirm that I would not act against the government in any way. I signed it, of course, but it was laughable...the people who would most readily sign such an oath are the ones who are would-be traitors.
In the end, the political world is hardly different from the underworld. The truth always comes out when the price of lying gets too high.
495
@Nat Ehrlich: I don't understand the comparison with Don Corleone, because he gave loyalty back to his people. Trump expects loyalty, but he gives none in return, so he will eventually pay the price (one hopes), or we will.
2
@Nat Ehrlich
~ "In their minds, they are the wretched victims of evil villains who have unfairly dealt with them.
Trump escaped that fate by virtue of his being born into great wealth..."
I respectfully disagree that trump escaped "that fate." In his mind he is still raging against the Rockefellers and Morgans who never accepted him in their social circles...the circles of wealth that endure through foundations and seem to live forever. Instead trump fixes his name to buildings thinking they are pyramids that will last for the ages. trump will soon die and he knows it...he is in a race against time and has nothing to lose.
3
Perhaps his biggest mob boss-like trait is the loyalty thing. As soon as you are disloyal, you are out. Ask Michael Cohen. Thirty years of groveling service and then thrown to the curb. Trump would have him whacked if he could.
Trump also has the whole "consigliere" thing. He loves talking about how he needs a Roy Cohn, and now he has Giuliani playing that role.
And he certainly has his muscle to go out and beat on his enemies and rivals. Roger Stone, Cory Lewandowski, Sean Hannity, Don Jr., and David Pecker, just to name a few.
Mobsters also have their hangouts, where they privately meet with their "family". John Gotti had the Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry Street. Trump has Mar A Lago in Palm Beach, where his fawning toadies buy memberships to get access to the Boss. When they want to meet with you, both Gotti and Trump would summon you to the club.
Finally, mobsters are not known for being great to their women, and the married ones are often known to have a few on the side. Boss Donnie has that down, too.
"Make America Gotti Again"? Make America Gambino Again"? Not so far fetched.
311
@Jack Sonville
Yes, but he mob never cared much for Comrade Trump. The REAL DONS believed Comrade Trump is an illiterate who lives by threatening, but only follows though if the potential victims are weak & vulnerable and unable to fight back. Ripping children away from their refugee parents is a perfect example. The mob had a rule: do NOT go after the children. In addition, the REAL DONS wrote Comrade Trump off as also untrustworthy; he is a man without honor whose word & handshake meant ZERO. Comrade Trump was VERY easy bait for the Russians. They OWN their Comrade Trump.
2
During the Republican primaries, Senator Cruz, of whom I am no fan, belittled Mr. Trump as a child of privilege who grew up to be a wannabe mobster, and observed there is “a consistent pattern ... of Donald and his henchmen pushing for violence.”
This was in response to Mr. Trump's newly hired convention manager and Russian spy, Paul Manafort, who had accused Cruz of using “Gestapo tactics” to sway delegates to the Republican nominating convention.
It is an interesting read to go back to 2016 and see how many Republicans called Mr. Trump out for the wannabe gangster he really is.
279
Having hung out with a lot of these Goodfella types in NY when I was growing up...I have always got Trump---and as Ms. Dowd points out, he never disappoints me in his daily Soprano performance. What I don't get, now that I live in the midwest, are the salt of the earth midwestern types---especially women---whose impeccable manners and careful speech---are so opposed to mob-like vulgarity of Trump---and yet, the swearing, the lying, the serial infidelity, matter little, he is, their Don.
344
@ACJ
They like authoritarian men, especially Trump- and Pence- supporting women, who mistake totalitarian stupidity for machoism.
1
@ACJ. Have you ever looked closely at the women in these Mafia movies? These are exactly the kind that “dese types a guys” attract and marry. It’s camouflage.
1
@ACJ
The answer lies in their common unrelenting resentment against non-whites..
The Godfather and Goodfellas are two of my favorite movies. However, that does not mean that I admire and emulate mobsters. This is just another way that Trump can not separate reality from fiction. It is no surprise that he admires mobster presidents such as Putin, Erdogan, Duerte, Ji Jing Ping, and Kim Jung Un.
171
Well, it makes a good column. But in this comparison, who are we? Are we the small grocery store owner, staying quiet, paying the weekly protection money? Kissing the ring to get a favor? Waking up with the horse head in bed.
We stay silent. And the media. They dutifully attend press conferences, repeat tweets, tsk, tsking daily.
One word comes to mind. Sad.
195
@Jo Williams I am SO with you. If the NY Times and the Washington Post, and maybe CNN, made a deal not to cover Trump's tweets for a month, and only relied on official statements from the White House, I think it would be a very interesting experiment. Without attention to his every little brain fart, what would Trump do?
2
@Jo Williams
And new “Quiet American” Empire
1