That’s not farfetched! Americans love Mafia bosses. Movies about them have made millions for Hollywood. Scarface and The Godfather top the list of 188 Mafia films released from 1948 to 2018. Scarface grossed $45 million. The Godfather racked in $134.97 million. So Americans know that crime bosses set up “….a permanent monopoly of political power tied to one person, the growth of fortunes in the hands of a political elite, and the presence of corruption and systemic corruption.”
Now we can elect one. If he wins, Donald Trump will have unchecked power over federal agencies, the power to bypass Congress and “… use the justice department to get revenge on all his enemies, expand presidential immunity, purge the civil service, install thousands of loyal followers throughout the federal government…deport millions of undocumented immigrants, deploy US troops for ‘war’ on the southern border, end birthright citizenship…” So yes, Trump knows how Mafia bosses operate. He’s worked with them for years. His statement to a 2004 panel at the Museum of Television and Radio in Los Angeles, that wanted him to do shows about Mafia bosses, makes it clear just how well Trump knows them. “ You know mobsters don’t like, as they are talking to me, having cameras all over the room. It would play well on television, but it doesn’t play well with them.” As Newsweek reported in its 2019 expose of Trump’s Mafia connections, “Trump’s upbringing in Queens, where the Mafia was ubiquitous, helped form his wise guy persona.”
Trump has bragged about his business success for years. But, as an FBI agent put it in Newsweek ‘s expose about Trump’s association with the Mafia: “New York was so totally corrupt and so controlled by the mob in the ‘80s that in order to be a successful business man, you had to have some way to work with that world.”
Trump has started calling himself “Honest Don.” But his criminal history shows that’s a lie. The most notable law suits against him to date have found him guilty of fraud.
· In 2016, Trump settled a law suit against Trump University for $25 million after defrauding thousands of students between 2005 and 2010.
· In 2019, A court shut down his charity foundation and he was “forced to pay $2 million for misusing charitable funds for his own political gain.”
· In 2022, the Trump Organization was found guilty on all counts of criminal tax fraud.
· In 2023, Donald Trump was charged with a felony in New York, involving 23 counts of falsifying business records.
“Honest Don” now faces 88 federal and state criminal indictments, as well as civil law suits in 3 states — New York, Georgia, Florida and the District of Columbia: https://www.nytimes.com/article/trump-investigations-civil-criminal. html Bottom line: Americans know how Mafia bosses operate. So let me ask you this. In 2024, do you want a President of the United States with severe mental problems, according to 27 nationally respected psychiatrists running the U.S. like a Mafia boss?
Jodie Sinclair is a longtime Bandera County resident who received her masters in journalism.
