Nobody in Donald Trump’s orbit has ever seen a gangster movie. Not The Godfather, not Goodfellas, not The Sopranos. If they had, they would know there’s nothing you can give to ever satisfy a gangster.
Gangsters never demand something you are capable of giving; it’s always more than you can afford, and you are indebted for life. Trump expected former Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute his enemies, erase his personal culpability in the Jeffrey Epstein crimes, seize control of elections from the states, and on and on. All more than any one person could deliver, no matter how deeply they abased themselves, even if they were corrupt to begin with.
Gangsters take and take and take until you have nothing left, and then if getting rid of you is advantageous to them, they will destroy you. In the movies, the sap gets violently whacked. In Trump’s world, you get “fired” in a publicly humiliating manner, like a contestant on the game show that fooled a large number of gullible Americans into thinking he was a savvy businessman.
The lucky few in Trump’s wake may get lifelines as podcasters or unregistered foreign agents for Turkey, but for most, it’s a lifetime of ignominy, disgrace, and criminal liability. It will forever be baffling to me that anyone, no matter how craven, would willingly sign up for this inevitable public humiliation, on his game show or in this administration. Short-term profit for some, maybe, but almost all end up in the gutter.
It may even be a slight against real-life gangsters to categorize Trump as one, because any goodfella that manages to survive and profit is probably very clever. Trump is more like a quick-burning virus, a fungal parasite, or flesh-eating bacteria that blindly consumes and destroys everything he touches: everything from his father’s fortune, casinos, a mail-order frozen steak company, the US Government, and the global economy.