Trump goes to the mattresses
By:
LeRoy Goldman
Columnist
BlueRidgeNow
Times-News Online
May 20, 2018
No, this isn’t about Stephanie Clifford, aka porn film star Stormy Daniels, or Karen McDougal, the former Playmate model, each of whom claims she had an extramarital affair with Donald Trump.
It’s about the warfare that crime families engage in that is so vividly described in Mario Puzo’s novel “The Godfather,” which was brought to the screen in the ’70s by Frances Ford Coppola. And it’s about how the lessons of that sort of warfare apply in Washington today.
“The Godfather” teaches us that we need to know about “going to the mattresses.” It’s what criminal gangs do when war erupts among them. They retreat to safe houses, usually seedy apartments, that can accommodate 15 to 20 gang members who sleep in shifts on mattresses on the floor while others stand guard in the event their lair is discovered. There they wait until the order comes for them to strike at the rival gang.
Such a war was triggered when Virgil Sollozzo gunned down the Godfather, Don Vito Corleone. In retribution, Vito’s son, Michael, murders Sollozzo and his bodyguard, one of New York’s “finest,” NYPD Capt. Mark McCluskey. That ignited a five-gang bloodbath.
Such gangland carnage is brutal, unforgiving and most importantly pointless. Pointless because these gangs control their own territory, are immensely wealthy and have well-established tentacles that enable them to corrupt too many politicians, police, prosecutors and the press. Yet they cannot resist the temptation to poach on the territory of rival gangs. What fuels that death wish is a combination of fear and greed they cannot control.
And there’s the rub. The alluring power of fear and greed as the principal motivators of so much destructive human behavior isn’t unique to criminals. It’s alive in well in most of us, and now it’s largely responsible for the corruption in and paralysis of our political system.
President Trump has gone to the mattresses!
Whether one likes it or not, and none of us should, the Trump administration, its allies on Capitol Hill and most importantly Trump’s ardent and unquestioning supporters across the nation have been forced to turn away from a governing agenda so they can concentrate their full efforts on protecting Trump from the long arm of the law and the possibility of impeachment proceedings in Congress.
The president’s strategy is becoming clearer every day. The game of musical chairs among his lawyers with the departure of John Dowd and Ty Cobb, who attempted to work cooperatively with special counsel Robert Mueller, and the arrival of Rudy Giuliani and Emmet Flood makes it evident that Trump will not agree to be interviewed by Mueller even though he or his lawyers may say just the opposite.
Should Mueller attempt to subpoena the president, it’s likely that Trump would successfully ignore the subpoena. In fact, Trump’s real agenda is to continue his relentless effort to discredit Mueller and his investigation. He’s already called it a witch hunt, and that’s just the beginning.
Trump’s real agenda is political, not legal. His intention is that his onslaught against Mueller will bring enough of his supporters to the polls this November to keep Republicans in control of Congress.
Trump knows a U.S. House under Democratic rule will be a House that will use its subpoena power to pursue multiple investigations into him and his administration, and may also begin impeachment proceedings.
In case you haven’t noticed, Washington has ground to a halt in terms of governing the nation. It’s so bad that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans take the time to even pretend they are doing their jobs.
Washington has descended into the theater of the absurd. The Democrats are headed into the fall election without having crafted a message that can broaden their appeal and resonate with voters. Instead, they have taken the easy way out and placed their bet on enough voter opposition to Trump and the Republicans to give them a working majority in at least the House, if not the Senate, this November.
Trump, on the other hand, is directing (not masterminding) a gang war against fellow Republicans — Mueller, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former FBI Directory James Comey and others. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell is the least popular member of Congress, and House Speaker Paul Ryan can’t get back to Wisconsin quickly enough.
The White House’s Lincoln Bedroom (no seedy apartment) is strewn with mattresses for the Don’s family and soldiers. Consigliere Giuliani has put out a call for Peter Clemenza to come and show them how to make the spaghetti sauce, as he did for Michael Corleone.
Not even Mario Puzo could have imagined and penned a tale as disgustingly bizarre as this!
Times-News columnist LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident. Reach him at tks12no12@gmail.com.
