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michael cohen
La MAGA Nostra: Trump, the Mafia Metaphor, and the Corruption of Power
Just like the old Sicilian mafia called itself Cosa Nostra—meaning “our thing”—Trump presents himself as “Our Monster,” a kind of anti-hero who embodies the public’s disgust with a distant and dismissive establishment.
Feb 25, 2025
On August 24, 2023, a headline blared “La Maga Nostra” over the front page of the New York Post.
Dominating the layout was a photo of then-ex-President Donald Trump, his chin slightly raised in veiled contempt. The comparison was unmistakable: Trump as Don Corleone, the shadowy figurehead of The Godfather.
An accompanying news box underscored the irony. Trump had been hit with RICO charges, a legal framework famously pioneered by his own lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to bring down New York’s mafia families, including the infamous “Teflon Don,” John Gotti.
Trump didn’t introduce the corruption of power to America. He simply streamlined it, stripped it of its former subtleties, and branded it in his own image.
The former real estate mogul has long invited comparisons to the mafia. His favorite films include The Godfather and Goodfellas, and his personal style—big pompadour hair, boxy suits, and flashy red ties—reflects that influence.
Michael Cohen once described himself as Trump’s consigliere, akin to Tom Hagen in The Godfather. Former FBI Director James Comey, who spent part of his career investigating organized crime, remarked that Trump’s approach to cultivating loyalty gave him “flashbacks” to his days taking down capos.
Then who could forget Trump’s infamous dig at Chris Cuomo, calling him “Fredo”—a jab that prompted one of the cringiest displays of Italian American male insecurity in decades.
From his “Teflon” ability to evade legal consequences to his swaggering machismo and Joe Pesci-like fragile ego, the affinity is laid bare.
Recent attempts on his life all but cemented Trump’s image as a modern-day mafia man. Whether or not the Post’s editors realized it, they captured the essence of his appeal.
It’s often remarked that unchecked social and economic pain leads to the emergence of “strong men.” In the classic authoritarian model, outlined by thinkers like Theodor Adorno, the disenfranchised turn to leaders who embody defiance, control, and simplicity in the face of chaos.
For millions of Americans mired in debt, struggling to pay rent, and unlikely ever to own a home, calling our society “neo-feudal” hardly feels hyperbolic.
It also tracks with the history of the mafia. The mafia evolved out of feudalism’s wake in southern Italy. As absentee landlords managed vast estates from afar, a vacuum was filled by vicious overseers and middlemen—figures the Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia called “parasitic intermediaries.”
Sciascia is widely credited as Italy’s first “anti-mafia” voice, following his 1961 novel The Day of the Owl. He viewed the mafia’s emergence in Sicily, shortly after the country’s unification in 1861, as a metaphor for the modern corruption of power—representing a distorted “ideal” of justice that promises order and protection for society’s have-nots while thriving on internal exploitation.
That this distorted image developed within a historical context marred by colonization and exploitation in Sicily—where peasants often romanticized the mafia and longed for a return to monarchy—pained Sciascia.
Equally, he recognized similar patterns in other contexts.
Trumpism operates in a similar way—not as a rejection of power consolidation, but as its acceleration.
Recent developments in Trump’s second term illustrate how a cartel-like consolidation of power among billionaires is carving out fiefdoms and aligning their interests with Trump’s administration in ways that echo mafia-like dynamics.
Peter Thiel’s role in “disrupting” the establishment sees him pumping money into Trump-friendly candidates and tech ventures that favor the privatization of state functions—a classic power consolidation strategy.
Jared Kushner’s financial deals with Saudi Arabia suggest a patronage model where money secures access and influence. Saudi investments in Silicon Valley, defense, and U.S. real estate could be seen as a geopolitical deal—leveraging Trump’s power for long-term economic control.
Elon Musk’s role, however, may be the most revealing. If Trump is the Don, Musk is shaping up to be his new consigliere, not unlike the old mafia’s lawyer-fixers—except with a global tech empire at his disposal.
His control over X (formerly Twitter) allows him to dictate the flow of political discourse, much like a mafia boss controlling the press. If Cosa Nostra kept power through silence—omertà—Musk ensures loyalty through algorithms, shadowbans, and the subtle privileging of certain voices over others.
Federal deregulation benefiting Musk’s empire (Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink) might reflect the kind of crony capitalism once associated with political machines, but at a planetary scale. Meanwhile, Trump sides with Musk over H-1B visas, even as the MAGA rank and file rebelled, and Musk called them “retarded.”
The direction we are headed in is shocking. But it would be a terrible mistake to view it as aberrant. Trump didn’t introduce the corruption of power to America. He simply streamlined it, stripped it of its former subtleties, and branded it in his own image.
His rise exposes a sickening continuity. Former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton played the game with suit-and-tie professionalism—the neoliberal, financialized version of patronage. Former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney did it through defense contracting and old-money oil interests.
Trump now strips this down to its rawest level: outright transactionalism, loyalty oaths, and a government that operates like a family business.
He presents himself as the “honest liar,” exploiting well-founded perceptions of corruption while openly admitting to behaviors that elites deny. His blatant displays of donor back-scratching feel almost refreshing in their vulgar transparency.
Just like the old Sicilian mafia called itself Cosa Nostra—meaning “our thing”—Trump presents himself as “Our Monster,” so to speak; a kind of anti-hero who embodies the public’s disgust with a distant and dismissive establishment.
Like Al Capone, who opened a soup kitchen in Chicago during the Great Depression, he swoops in to get “close” to the people. As a distorted Robin Hood-like figure, he plays up his everyman appeal, toggling between his gilded digs and disaffected base. His diction is street-level, his parlance tabloid. He eats the food (McDonald’s). He speaks the language.
Sciascia wrote about the insidious spread of corruption, describing how “the palm line”—as a symbol of mafia influence—creeps northward from Sicily to Rome.
In America, Trump represents its teleological end. He doesn’t need to resort to brute violence.
His power lies in painting a romanticized picture—MAGA—over a bleak reality—“American Carnage.” In an Italian context, Sciascia dubbed this Sicilianità: the tendency to “decorate” harsh realities and mask corruption with rhetorical flourish. The Democrats tried to do something similar with “Joy.” But it failed.
The one thing that Sciascia hated more than the mafia was fascism. Yet in a sense, he viewed them as codependent. Ultimately, he viewed the mafia’s power as resulting from a “historic failure, the failure of the Centre-Left,” and the ravages of “eternal bourgeoisie fascism”—the inability of elites to distinguish their dream-hoarding interests from the needs of the masses.
Which brings us to Musk—a billionaire who sells himself as a free-thinking outsider while constructing a world where he remains the gatekeeper of discourse itself.
If Trump’s rise was a mafia movie, Musk’s role makes it something else entirely—a Pirandellian farce, in which power’s corruption is so blatant that it becomes surreal.
We are now through the looking glass. And whatever comes next will be even more profane than the system Trump claims to oppose.
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Democracy Defenders Stress NY Trump Trial 'Is About Voter Deception'
"Trump engaged in criminal acts to cover up the truth just days before the 2016 election, and now he will finally face a jury of everyday Americans."
Apr 15, 2024
As former U.S. President Donald Trump's first of four potential criminal trials began in New York on Monday, progressive groups emphasized that what is often called a hush money case involving a porn star "is about voter deception."
Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate to face Democratic President Joe Biden in November, faces 88 felony charges across the four cases. For this one, he was indicted by a New York grand jury last spring with 34 counts of falsifying business records related to alleged hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 election cycle.
The payments were made by Michael Cohen, Trump's former fixer, to porn star Stormy Daniels, and by the tabloid The National Enquirer to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model. The twice-impeached ex-president has pleaded not guilty.
"This case is about the allegation that Trump criminally hid information from voters to influence the outcome of the 2016 election," said Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, in a statement Monday.
"You can draw a clear pattern from this election interference behavior to his more emboldened efforts to subvert the 2020 election, which led to the January 6th insurrection, a lasting stain on American democracy," she added, referring to the 2021 U.S. Capitol attack that some critics argue makes him constitutionally ineligible to hold office again. "Accountability for criminal deception of voters is absolutely necessary to ensure future candidates and public officials know they can't get away with this sort of conduct."
Gilbert stressed that "despite what Donald Trump and his allies may claim, no one is above the law—including a former president charged with serious crimes, and today marks the start of the legal system's chance to prove this point."
Stand Up America president and founder Sean Eldridge similarly celebrated that "Donald Trump will finally face accountability for falsifying his company's business records in order to conceal damning information from voters ahead of the 2016 election."
"Concealing secret payments and then lying in official filings to cover it up is a serious crime, which is why Trump has been charged with 34 felony counts," Eldridge said. "This case is a clear example of Trump's pattern of engaging in criminal behavior to cling to power and hide the truth from the American people. No one is above the law in the United States of America, including former presidents."
"A functioning democracy depends on voters having the information they need to pick their leaders," he continued. "Trump engaged in criminal acts to cover up the truth just days before the 2016 election, and now he will finally face a jury of everyday Americans."
This is the first criminal trial of a former American president. Monday featured a series of rulings from Judge Juan Merchan—who has rejected Trump's demands that he step away from the case—and the beginning of jury selection.
The New York Timesreported that "the initial pool of prospective jurors dwindled rapidly. More than half of the first group of 96 were dismissed in short order after indicating that they did not believe they could be impartial. Court adjourned for the day roughly two hours after jury selection began, with zero jurors chosen."
In addition to the case in New York, Trump faces two federal cases—overseen by Special Counsel Jack Smith because of Trump's 2024 campaign. One is about his mishandling of classified material and the other stems from his attempt to reverse the 2020 election results. The Republican also faces a Georgia case for interfering with the last presidential contest.
It is not clear whether any of the other three cases will go to trial before the November election. Trump is trying to claim presidential immunity to get the federal election charges dismissed and the U.S. Supreme Court—to which he appointed three justices—is set to hear arguments in that case on April 25.
Public Citizen is among the groups that last week submitted briefs to the high court criticizing Trump's claims. The watchdog's president, Robert Weissman, said that "Trump's legal theory defies common sense and would enable an almost limitless tyranny. Nothing in the Constitution—which aims to prevent tyranny—supports Trump's theory."
This post has been updated with the former president's 88 charges, reduced from 91 in March.
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'This P*ssy Grabbed Back': Stormy Daniels Speaks Out After Trump Indictment
The porn star said she is unafraid of facing the former president in court: "I've seen him naked. There's no way he could be scarier with his clothes on."
Mar 31, 2023
Stormy Daniels reacted Friday to the criminal indictment of former U.S. President Donald Trump with a play on his infamous taped remarks seemingly confessing to sexually assaulting women.
"This pussy grabbed back," Daniels—the porn star paid $130,000 by Trump fixer Michael Cohen in return for silence about an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with the future president—told The Times of London in a paywalled article.
One month before the 2016 presidential election, a 2005 recording of Trump telling "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush that "when you're a star," women let you "do anything" to them," including "grab 'em by the pussy" surfaced.
More than two dozen women and a 13-year-old girl have accused Trump—a 2024 Republican presidential candidate—of sexual misconduct, including assault.
"Trump is no longer untouchable," Daniels continued in the interview. "A person in power is not exempt from the law. And no matter what your job is, or what your bank account says, you're held accountable for the things you've said and done, and justice is served."
\u201c\ud83d\udd3a EXCLUSIVE: Stormy Daniels speaks out after Trump is charged with paying alleged hush money.\n\n\u201cHe\u2019s done so much worse that he should have been taken down [for] before. I am fully aware of the insanity of it being a porn star. But it\u2019s also poetic; this pussy grabbed back\u201d\u201d— The Times and The Sunday Times (@The Times and The Sunday Times) 1680282617
Daniels called Trump's indictment—which reportedly involves over 30 as-of-yet unspecified counts stemming from the $130,000 payment—a "vindication."
"But it's bittersweet," she added. "He's done so much worse that he should have been taken down [for] before. I am fully aware of the insanity of it being a porn star. But it's also poetic."
Trump is both the first president to be impeached twice and the first ex-president to face criminal charges.
Daniels said she learned about the indictment while she was out riding her horse, whose name is Redemption.
"There's something really ironic and hilarious that I got the news about the indictment while I was sitting on a horse named Redemption," she said, adding that she used some of the $130,000 hush money payment to buy a horse trailer.
\u201cThank you to everyone for your support and love! I have so many messages coming in that I can't respond...also don't want to spill my champagne \ud83d\ude1c #Teamstormy merch/autograph orders are pouring in, too! Thank you for that as well but allow a few extra days for shipment.\u201d— Stormy Daniels (@Stormy Daniels) 1680219745
Daniels said the indictment will "divide people" and questioned whether Trump would ultimately be held accountable, noting that he has "already gotten away with inciting a riot."
"Whatever the outcome is, it's going to cause violence, and there's going to be injuries and death," Daniels warned. "There's the potential for a lot of good to come from this. But either way, a lot of bad is going to come from it, too."
However, Daniels says she's undaunted by the prospect of facing Trump in court.
"I've seen him naked," she explained. "There's no way he could be scarier with his clothes on."
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