If you, like me, are still flabbergasted at the depths of depravity, hypocrisy, and deceit the “Trumpism” Republicans are now capable of, let’s take a better look at what might really be going on. Watching as one jaw-droppingly greasy event after another has vomited into the Trump Swamp, a disturbing revelation has become clear to me: the Trump-enabled Mafia has taken over the GOP.
From the National Republican Committee’s (NRC) “lyin Jim Comey” website—arguably the most disgraceful smear job by a Major Political party in an official capacity in the history of politics—to Michael Cohen’s Republican extortion racket with Keith Davidson, the examples are becoming alarmingly obvious. It’s really hard to tell if it’s Trump, Cohen, or some other shadowy figure we’ve not yet heard of who’s really in charge of this outright assault on our Democracy, but it’s clear that something (I hesitate to associate it with the human race) is on the very wrong side of the law, and it’s now taken over one of our two great political institutions. Sure, the bad Russian actors seem to be driving part of it, but it’s beyond that, I think. It’s something very much like a US-based Mafia with Russian connections that’s taken over the GOP.
As ProPublica’s awesome reporting (and many other “Real News” outlets, too) is revealing, the dots between Trump, the Republican National Committee (RNC), and various nefarious mobsters are popping up with ever-more-easily-connected frequency. You connect these dots, and you’re looking at picture of pure malignancy. Let’s look at some of the alarming, less publicized ones:
- Although never having served in an official RNC position, it is, appropriately, “Sloppy” Steve Bannon who essentially drove the final nail in the coffin of respectability at the GOP. In successfully pushing accused pedophile, and twice-removed-from-the-bench Judge, Roy Moore, across the primary finish line, Bannon did a whole lot more than quash the hopes of a decent Republican, Luther Strange. With the move, he effectively destroyed the Republican Party, along with whatever influence Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell still had in the process. Even though Bannon is now a disgraced Trumper and man reduced to promoting European fascism, he completed the takeover by the unsavory criminals.
- In an interesting, but perhaps related aside, we recently learned that before he became a Trumpeter, Bannon was was actually teamed with the Mercers and “lying Ted Cruz” to sell information on Trump’s connections to the mob. Trump himself, of course, suppressed Cruz’s Mob storyline by having his buddy, the aptly named David Pecker, attack Cruz (and his wife) with this May, 2016 Enquirer headline: Pervy Ted Cruz Caught Cheating — With 5 Secret Mistresses! Extraordinarily, Cruz’s capitulation to Donald Trump after a very nasty primary, suggests that Trump really does have some hidden leverage over Cruz. The enquirer story may actually be based on truth. In any event, it’s clear that Cruz was hitting a little too close to home by exposing the Donald’s mafia ties and needed to be silenced with leverage. Lovely group of people, eh?
- Okay, with that rogue’s gallery of GOP mobsters down, let’s look at who is still in official positions of power at the RNC. Ronna McDaniel, the current RNC chair (who succeeded “Reincy” Priebus after he left to become the first failed Trump Chief of Staff), has been the official cheerleader of all of the sordid activities mentioned above. When she accepted the resignation of staunch anti-abortionist, Broidy, did she address the optics of her colleague’s ties to Russia, or of his forcing his Bunny mistress to have an abortion? Nope. She just thanked him for his service, and said, “We don't want to distract from our purpose, which is to elect Republicans.” And did she have anything to say about Roy Moore when he was credibly accused of being a pedophile? Nope, she just kept sending him money and said, “it’s up to the voters of Alabama right now. We’re going to see this play out.” Of course, this doesn’t mean she’s tied to the mob, but we get a sense of her morals, when after the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke, she said, “you shouldn’t take money from somebody who treated women with the absolute highest level of disrespect.” Well, that’s not bad, right? It’s true, you shouldn’t. But what did she have to say when her co-chair, Steve Wynn, later got busted for exactly the same thing? “Steve has denied these allegations,… we’re going to let due process take place.” To date, no investigation has taken place and none of Wynn’s more than $2 million in donations has been returned. So, it’s clear that Ronna has established herself as a sort of the Mormon version of flagrant “Fake News” lover, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Like Sarah, Ronna “Romney” McDaniels is the daughter of Republican Royalty. She is the niece of Mitt Romney and Granddaughter of Nixonite, George Romney. I don’t know, but if I was Ronna, I would’ve, you know, at least thought twice about selling my soul to Trump, an amoral, serial liar and scam artist, who had these kind words to say of her dear Uncle, Mitt: “He was begging for my endorsement. I could’ve said, ‘Mitt, drop to your knees,’ and he would’ve dropped to his knees.” But, you know, it’s hyper-partisanship and power over honor and family in today’s GOP. It’s hard to find a parallel to Ronna McDaniel and Sarah Sanders in real life, so I’ll turn to fiction for a better analogy. They are to Trumpworld, what the Mouthpiece of Sauron was to Middle Earth: people so ensnared by evil, they don’t even remember what it is to have a mind of their own (and don’t stop the analogies there, the Tolkein character was based on the Biblical false prophet of the Book of Revelations).
- That leaves us with Louis DeJoy, former CEO of a logistics company called NewBreed (now XPO Logistics), who was nominated to lead the RNC Finance committee alongside Cohen, and Broidy. There’s not much known about DeJoy so far, except that he gave close to $500,000 to the party, hosted a high-dollar fundraiser for Trump, and is—surprise!—a big golfer. In addition to the RNC position, DeJoy was rewarded with a position on the board of directors of the government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and in keeping with Trump’s inclination to reward nepotism and incompetence, DeJoy’s wife, Aldona Wos, was also given a political position as Vice-Chairman of the Presidential Fellowship Commission. Her prior reign as North Carolina’s Head of Health and Human services was marked by non-performance in getting low-income women and infants food stamps, and by the scandal of awarding no-bid contracts to DeJoy’s associates and hiring an executive from his company for a high-paid job as an assistant. But we get a sense of how DeJoy views the role of the Republican National Committee when he says they are “organized to support the President,” despite what he said is a common perception that it is closely aligned to congressional leaders. Ah, so now we get to the heart of the matter. The RNC is for Mob sub-boss, Trump, alone, not for the 1,000+ other elected Republicans in the country. So in other words, it’s now in the hands of a crime syndicate either controlled by Trump or controlling Trump himself. Take your pick.
Of course, we haven’t really spoken in detail about mega-mobster, Michael Cohen, who, did I mention, is STILL the RNC deputy Finance chair? But I’ll leave that one to the professionals. It looks like the FBI is finally going to bring him down, but considering that he’s been, you know, doing extremely shady stuff for years and years and hasn’t even faced a single charge, what’s taken them so long is anybody’s guess.
We also haven’t spoken about Trump’s mob influences. Again, that’s so well covered that I don’t think I need to go there. I am, however, becoming convinced that Trump’s not the one in charge of this whole sordid mess. For one thing, he’s simply too incompetent and too easily manipulated by his even more incompetent staff to be the head of this thing. Anyone who is so desperate to appear wealthy that he’ll take an author to court for writing factually about Trump’s wealth, and then proceeds to get busted thirty times for lying under oath, is not just an idiot, but an idiot who is incredibly vulnerable to blackmail. Reading these crazy stories, it’s become very, very clear to me that he lives by only two core principles: money and leverage. What’s obvious to me is that a lot of people with no scruples know just how to exploit Trump to get some leverage on him: just flatter him a little bit, make him think he’s the big man, record some damaging information on him—which is easy because he is incredibly undisciplined—and presto you’ve got him! I’ve gotta believe it’s not just one Vladimir Putin who’s pulling Trump’s strings, it’s gotta also be the mob. And now they’ve used Trump to orchestrate a take over of the Republican Party. Nothing else explains the utter destruction that the RNC has wrought on the few principled guys, like Comey, Flake, McCain, and Corker. Nothing else explains the utter contempt the RNC now has for the truth, decency, and the American Way.
I swear it’s something out of a James Bond movie. Only in this real-life drama, it’s going to take more than a martini-sodden British agent to get us out of it. It’s going to take putting partisanship aside in favor of truth and the rule of law. The Comeys and Muellers and Flakes and McCains need our help, even if you don’t agree with their politics. Vote. Sign petitions, participate in peaceful protests, take the high-road with all the internet trolls in the thrall of this criminal organization, and don’t engage in divisive insult-fests. The way I see it, most of the 50-60 million people who think Trump is just some sort of abrasive, disrespectfully funny rich guy under attack by the liberal media, are not bad, they’ve just been suckered. That’s the real power of Trump. That’s why so many Evangelicals have latched on to him. Because he’s a religion. That’s why he’s the perfect mouthpiece for an insidious and powerful something that looks like a crime organization now controlling the RNC. And, if you attack Trump, or his most ardent supporters on a personal basis, it’s only going to feed the Trumpian false narrative that much more.
We win this with the facts showing actual links between Trump and organized crime. A If Mueller can’t pin an actual indictment on him, we need to put the checks on him with a Democrat controlled House and Senate; and if he can't be impeached, we need to vote him the hell out of there in 2020 by a massive landslide. Make no mistake, this is not a war on Trumpism. There is no such thing. Trump doesn’t have a platform or philosophy other than self-enrichment. No, this is awar against organized crime at the highest levels of our government. We have to win it. We have to truly reform the Government this time. Because, if we don’t, we’ll be a mob-controlled Oligarchy. Just like our new best friends in Putin's Russia.