One of these guys may have had an IQ higher than a footstool
If you grew up in the Tri-State area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut) in the 1970s and 1980s, one of the many things that made Donald Trump a ridiculous character was how he talked. Here was a silver-spooned, self-absorbed jerk who tried to carry himself like New York organized crime boss John Gotti. To New Yorkers it meant watching a poser who decided not only to take on the “second generation New York Italian immigrant everyman” persona, but to take on the most egregious of its “alpha male” stereotypes. It, as everybody now knows, was perfectly Trump: liar, a con man, a narcissist, a bully, and an emperor with no clothes.
Some of Trump’s youth was spent with his father, who, being in New York real estate, had mob ties. Trump has called awful human being Roy Cohn a “mentor,” and Cohn was known to be a bully of sorts. But Trump is the one who came up with “making deals,” and dealing with east coast “organized” types.
“When I first heard that Trump said to Comey, ‘Let this go,’ it just rang such a bell with me,” said Nicholas Pileggi, an author who has chronicled the Mafia in books and films like “Goodfellas” and “Casino.” “Trump was surrounded by these people. Being raised in that environment, it was normalized to him.”
As more evidence leaks out as to what prosecutors have on Trump’s longtime “personal attorney” Michael Cohen, Trump has become more and more agitated. It is not unlike watching any film or show about gangsters. New York Times White House correspondent Mark Lander wrote an article today that probes Trump’s appearances and statements over the last couple of days while the walls continue to close in on him.
“I know all about flipping,” Mr. Trump told Fox News this week. “For 30, 40 years I’ve been watching flippers. Everything’s wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go.”
But as Lander points out in the article, Trump’s handle on his mob boss “persona” is about as solid as his handle on anything. Here’s Trump “defending” Paul Manafort at the beginning of August.
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