Trump's Mafia-Styled Operation

Trump's Mafia-Styled Operation March 6, 2025 Trump has brought a mafia-styled operation to the Presidency, not for the first time. There is no clearer way I can describe it. Five years ago, he was on the brink of being impeached. He told President Zelensky there would be no more aid for Ukraine until Zelensky agreed to dig deep into computer files to find evidence to impugn Hunter Biden. It is a tragedy that Republican Senators who knew better, didn’t stand up then to impeach him, thereby thwarting the possibility of his returning to office. Today, the beat goes on. Trump is holding Zelensky and Ukraine hostage again. In order to receive more military aid, they are going to have to confer a substantial amount of the country’s mineral rights to the United States without, so far, a guarantee joined by the US, of preserving Ukraine's independence. This mafia-style operation is nothing new for Trump. It is how he ran his businesses. Totally transactional. Bluffing. Following the mantra--"if I hold the stronger hand I win". No matter what happens to you. The mafia style leadership characterizes Trump's relationships with other nations. Trump is using tariffs as a bludgeon to force countries into agreements. He offers to extend the enforcement of the tariff or pull it back, depending on what the leader agrees to tomorrow or next week. As David Sanger of the NYT aptly describes it, he "is turning tariffs on and off like tap water". He is acting almost "on whim". Wang Li, China's foreign minister characterizes Trump's tariff actions as "the law of the jungle". This is sheer power politics. It is a commitment to “the mighty will rule over the weak.” As Thucydidis wrote centuries ago,"the strong do what they can and the week suffer what they must". These tariff actions are leading to some short term "concessions" but this bullying and whip lash approach will not end well for us. The abandonment of a rules-based and trust-based relationship with other nations, including our closest historic allies has been and will remain essential to living in the world we want to live in. Our network of allies has been a great strenth of our nation. Trump is decimating it, day by day, hour by hour. There is no sign to date that Trump’s appointments to his cabinet or to his Republican colleagues are going to stand up against this mafia-type operation. I think the only thing that will lead them to is what I fear what may well happen to our nation: economic decline and continued chaos unsettling and endangering the lives of millions and millions of people. This is happening right now. The mafia styled operation also characterizes the domestic actions of the Trump Administration. Trump and Musk are dismantling institutions which have served this country for decades. Not perfectly; every institution needs improvement, some significantly in their efficiency and quality. But we need to build them--not destroy them-- we need to make them stronger to serve the public better. What we are witnessing now is chaotic and often cruel destruction without strategic calculation of how to make them better. We are in a troubled time. Not for the first time, we are in search of a leader who can bring this country back to its highest values, practically and cogently. We faced this need many times before. We faced it with Abraham Lincoln. With Teddy Roosevelt, with Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Harry Truman and others. They brought this country back on course whether that be with our domestic institutions, race relationships or our relationships with other countries. In the meantime, we need to push back at what is happening here that is wrong. I am encouraged by what the courts are doing. But I believe we need a mass movement of the kind we witnessed with the suffragettes and Civil Rights leaders which will need to be led by a leader who has yet to clearly emerge but I am sure is there. Reply, Reply All or Forward

Trump's Mafia-Styled Operation

Trump has brought a mafia-styled operation to the Presidency, not for the first time. There is no clearer way I can describe it. Five years ago, he was on the brink of being impeached. He told President Zelensky there would be no more aid for Ukraine until Zelensky agreed to dig deep into computer files to find evidence to impugn Hunter Biden. It is a tragedy that Republican Senators who knew better, didn’t stand up then to impeach him, thereby thwarting the possibility of this man returning to office. Today, the beat goes on. Trump is holding Zelensky and Ukraine hostage again. In order to receive more military aid, they are going to have to confer a substantial amount of the country’s mineral rights to the United States without, so far, a guarantee joined by the US, of preserving Ukraine's independence. This mafia-style operation is nothing new for Trump. It is how he ran his businesses. Totally transactional. Bluffing. Following the mantra--"if I hold the stronger hand I win". No matter what happens to you. The mafia style leadership characterizes Trump's relationships with other nations. Trump is using tariffs as a bludgeon to force countries into agreements. He offers to extend the enforcement of the tariff or pull it back, depending on what the leader agrees to tomorrow or next week. As David Sanger of the NYT aptly describes it, he "is turning tariffs on and off like tap water". He is acting almost "on whim". Wang Li, China's foreign minister charactertizes Trump's tariff actions as "the law of the jungle". This is sheer power politics. It is a commitment to “the mighty will rule over the weak.” As Thucydidis wrote centuries ago,"the strong do what they can and the week suffer what they must". These tariff actions are leading to some short term "concessions" but this bullying and whip lash approach will not end well for us. The abandonment of a rules-based and trust-based relationship with other nations, including our closest historic allies has been and will remain essential to living in the world we want to live in. Our network of allies has been a great strenth of our nation. Trump is decimating it, day by day, hour by hour. There is no sign to date that Trump’s appointments to his cabinet or to his Republican colleagues are going to stand up against this mafia-type operation. I think the only thing that will lead them to is what I fear what may well happen to our nation: economic decline and continued chaos unsettling and endangering the lives of millions and millions of people. This is happening right now. The mafia styled operation also characterizes the domestic actions of the Trump Administration. Trump and Musk are dismantling institutions which have served this country for decades. Not perfectly; every institution needs improvement, some significantly in their efficiency and quality. But we need to build them--not destroy them-- we need to make them stronger to serve the public better. What we are witnessing now is chaotic and often crueldestruction, without strategic calculation of how to make them better. We are in a troubled time. We are in search of a leader who can bring this country back to its highest values, practically and cogently. We faced this need many times before. We faced it with Abraham Lincoln. With Teddy Roosevelt, with Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Harry Truman and others. They brought this country back on course whether that be with race relationships or in our relationships with other countries. In the meantime, we need to push back at what is happening here that is wrong. I am encouraged by what the courts are doing. But I believe we need a mass movement like we witnessed with the suffragetes and Civil Rights leaders that is going to have to be led by a leader who has yet to emerge but I am sure is there. Reply, Reply All or Forward

Refelctions on Religion from Twenty-Two Years Ago--I Feel the Same Way Today

I have found the past year to be a very difficult one in terms of reconciling the faith I had in a super-ordinate power of goodness and ultimate creator of what exists, and the reaffirmation of the terrible damage and injustice that can grow from the fanatical, even if misguided, pursuit of religious orthodoxy. The torturous and horrific acts committed by some in the name of Allah are only the most recent manifestation of where religious belief can carry. To say that religion is not the root cause of violence (and sadly I think that judgment in some cases cannot be supported) does not change the fact that religion has too often served as the justification and been used to broaden the reach of the pursuit of evil. We see throughout history innumerable cases where religion, like it or not, has led to such inhuman ends. The crusades led by the Christians. The battles between Orthodox Serbs and Muslim Bosnians. The battle between Jewish and Palestinian fanatics. The Hindus versus the Muslims and many more. What is one to make of this? Surely there is no denying the benefits that organized religion has brought to people in numbers far too great to count. I am among them. If I had not been brought up a Catholic, if I had not participated in the Episcopal Church, particularly in the opportunity it gave me for self-reflection and contact with members of the clergy who inspired me with their thoughts, I surely would not be the person I am today. However, I find it unsatisfying and intellectually dishonest to simply leave the matter accepting that, yes, organized religion does a lot of good, but it does a lot of harm, too. What is so ironical is that, if you take the thoughts of Jesus, pure and simple, you could hardly go wrong. You could almost sum up every book written about good living in the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes. I am coming to a belief that the problem with organized religion is that it becomes fossilized and bureaucratized. Fossilized in the sense that it is slow or unwilling to change its views on what practices and behaviors are truly in accord with the root values of the great world religions. Those root values can be found in the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, in the admonition to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” If religion stopped there, and thought about what it meant to carry out these virtues faithfully in today’s world, we would not end up, I submit, with the exclusive “you are with us or you are against us” “only the faithful are worthy” attitude that have too often led to prejudice, violence and even war. The mistake of organized religions is to come to the belief that they have a unique interpretation of truth that extends beyond what is really the foundation of truth – being all one can be and honoring others as oneself. They become structured and bureaucratized and then work for their own self-perpetuation, knowing it or not, even if this is not in the furtherance of the few ultimate truths that really matter. Of course, religious institutions are not the only organizations that fall into this trap. All organizations do. The problem which religions face to a particular degree is that they don’t have built within them the adequate balance of power to adapt to the need to change rapidly. One need only think how long it has taken (and is still taking) for divorce to be accepted in certain religions. One thinks of all the artifice that has been used to get around this requirement, engaging in intellectual dishonesty in the extreme. What’s more, almost all religious organizations are self-appointed in their succession. Governments, too, can be slow to change, but their perpetuation (at least in a democracy) is determined by the electorate. It is not surprising that those societies which have not allowed the electorate to govern the succession have not, by and large, been successful over time. And even those, such as China today, which have continued to be ruled with a strong autocratic hand, have increasingly brought into the workings of society the individual choice in the economic and social spheres needed for the structure and operation of society to continue to evolve. What has led organized religion to change, it seems to me, often after an enormous length of time, is what has led other organizations to change, and that is survival. It is only as “the faithful” drop away from an organized church that the need for change will be truly embraced. And yet that need can come slowly for the power of organized religion is strong because the truth of its basic tenets remain, even as too often its rituals and practices become arcane, out of touch with modern society and honored more in the breach than in the practice. Moreover, for most of us, it is a fact that a church is far more conducive to reflection on the basic truths that make any religion of value than one’s living room. There have been a few members of the clergy whom I have met during my lifetime who have been able to articulate the simple truths of living a good life clearly and cogently. They have changed my life. I think all I can conclude from this difficult and in many ways unsettling line of thought is that the imperative is to try to adhere to these basic truths as well as one possibly can while seeking out individual(s) who can help bring them to light for me/us in a more meaningful way than we can do on our own. I have found such individuals in Bob Gerhard and Paula Jackson, among others. I need to hear from them more often. These thoughts led me to record these excerpts and reflections from the book Doubts and Loves by Richard Holloway: I would like to suggest that we should switch the emphasis in Christianity from belief to practice, from believing things about Jesus to the imitation of Jesus. There would be three challenging elements here: Resolution to love rather than condemn sinners. Seek to understand others rather than rush to judgment. Active pity for the disadvantaged of the earth, then work to change their lot. A mistrust of power and violence, both personal and institutional, and an act of opposition to them. I would like to suggest that worldlessness or identification with the powerless is the key to the mystery of Jesus. The paradox is that we have only heard of Jesus through an institution that has not experienced worldlessness for a very long time. The expendable Man of Nazareth is now represented by an institution that follows the logic of all worldly institutions the logic of expedience; the drive to survive; yet we would not even know about this paradox if it were not for the Church. The Sermon on the Mount is not exactly translatable into complete political practice, but it can act as a stimulus to aspiration; it can create the sort of discontent that leads to action. A transformed version of the Jesus tradition, adapted for our day, would lay less emphasis on believing things about Jesus and more emphasis on imitating Jesus. It would be a practice system rather than a belief system. What is left of Christianity should be the practice of the kind of love that subverts the selfishness of power, whether it is the subtle power of spiritual or the brutal power of political institutions. All concentrations of power justify their ascendancy with theory, as well as with more blatant methods. I would like to suggest that it is more important to open ourselves to the words that gave rise to the claim of divinity rather than to profess allegiance to the claim itself, but show little or no personal response to the words that precipitated it. The exciting thing about our history, the thing that helps to balance all the evil we have committed, is our passion for discovery, for beginning again. Christ’s teaching on forgiveness has already opened for us the possibility of a new politics that can even move us beyond great tragedy and start again. Young people are the way the world keeps on beginning again. For those who want to live the world, it must begin with attention. Intensity. Repentance. Forgiving others is a true win/win. For ourselves and for others. For those doing the forgiving and those forgiven.

The Challenge And Urgency of Standing Up to do What is Right

This challenge was illustrated in 1940 by the reluctance of people to face up to the horror of Hitler. Here is a petition signed by Potter Stewart, a future Supreme Court Justice, and Congressman Gerald Ford, a future President of the United States. “We demand the Congress refrain from war, even if England is on the verge of defeat.” Or, at the same time, this from William Coffin, as the Treasurer of Harvard talking to its President Conant: “Hitler is going to win. Let’s be friends with him.” This reminded Arthur Schlesinger of the challenge faced by the old Whig Party, the party of business in antebellum America. It did not confront the challenge of slavery. Yet slavery was as urgent a question in the 1850s as Nazism was in the 1940s. Everyone had to come to a decision on this. Just as everyone today must come to a decision on who holds the responsibility for Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Niebuhr presents the challenge of doing "what is right" by illuminating the mixed nature of man: “The plight of the self is that it cannot do the good it intends because man’s pretensions to reason and virtue,” he argued, “are eradicably tainted by self-interest and love. Original sin lies in man’s illusion that he can overcome his inherent finiteness and weakness". Over-weening self-pride permeates all human endeavor and brings evil into history, Niehbuhr argues. A second theme of Niebuhr is the relationship between history and eternity. The modern fallacy, he thought, was the idea that redemption is possible within the history. Man must understand the incompleteness of all historic good as well as the corruption of all historic achievement. Wisdom, he wrote, “is dependent upon a humble recognition of the limits of our knowledge and our power.” “Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime. Therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our standpoint. Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.” We are also saved, I have found, by the final form of love which is understanding and respecting another person’s reality as he or she sees it. I do not share Niebuhr’s thought that there is "corruption of all historic achievement.” I don’t buy this, not for a moment. There are historic achievements which do not become corrupt if carried out in the way that was embodied by that “historic achievement.” I think of a brilliant piece of art: a sculpture by Michelangelo or a timeless book by Tolstoy. I think of the development of the relationship of mutual understanding, true mutual understanding. That is not destined to become corrupt. There are things that are so right they stand the test of time. Above all, in my experience, works of art and personal relationships which are truly timeless.