2021.02.06 08:32
THINK newsletter
Trump may survive impeachment. But like my cousin Roy Cohn, he's lost New York's respect.
New York remembers my cousin not as a master of the universe, but as a lonely and discredited figure. That should be a warning to his favorite apprentice.
Feb. 6, 2021, 4:30 AM EST
By David L. Marcus, a former journalist, and author
Donald Trump spent the last four years at the center of the world. Holed up in Florida, he is about to face down the Senate in a historic second impeachment trial. He probably won't be convicted, and he remains beloved by his rabid fan base. But he's surely lost forever the chance to get what he really craved: respect in the boardrooms, clubrooms and newsrooms of Manhattan.
As a New York Daily News cover phrased it, "DON'T COME BACK!"
In the past few months, Trump suffered humiliating defeats from voters, judges, social media gatekeepers and even PGA tournament organizers. But surely the hometown rejection stings. He loved to show off his gilded triplex penthouse atop Trump Tower; he drew energy from the paparazzi who tailed him on Fifth Avenue; he gloried in seeing his name on hotels and residential buildings in elite neighborhoods.
I know this because I had a front-row seat to observe Trump during his dizzying ascent in the 1970s and 1980s. As a college student and then a young journalist, I spent time with Roy Marcus Cohn, the fixer who mentored Trump. Roy was my father’s cousin, so I saw the Cohn-Trump bullying and corner-cutting.
As I watched Trump with Cohn at parties in Manhattan and the Hamptons, I realized that their intense friendship was forged out of their common resentment of New Yorkers who seemed more successful, more established, more accepted.
Trump and Cohn grew up in the city’s outer boroughs, their faces pressed against the window of society, hoping to join in. Later, Trump would spin fables about his real estate prowess, like his $1.2 billion Taj Mahal casino, “the eighth wonder of the world” (until it went bankrupt). But deep down, he knew he was just an heir from a Queens family that owned undistinguished housing complexes. Cohn was born in the Bronx, raised by a mother who yearned for approval in Manhattan.
I understand. I spent my early childhood in East Harlem, while friends and relatives lived in glitzy neighborhoods, tantalizingly close by. New Yorkers know that the span of a few blocks means a world of difference in status.
Cohn wasn't much of a lawyer, but he was an unrelenting connector and charlatan. He introduced Trump to the tax-evading owners of Studio 54, the corrupt politicians who eased zoning restrictions, the Mafia bosses who allegedly ensured a steady supply of concrete for Trump Tower during a strike.
Cohn and Trump made sure the Old Guard saw them squired around town in their chauffeured Rolls-Royces. Yet no matter how many times Trump appeared in the tabloid columns or affixed his name to buildings, he couldn’t ingratiate himself with New York’s establishment.
“Donald operated in New York on the assumption that wealth, even pretend wealth, would buy everything he yearned for,” Ruth Messinger told me in an interview recently. She served as borough president of Manhattan in the 1990s and clashed with Trump over his attempts to wall in Manhattan with enormous apartment complexes.
“Real estate leaders made fun of Donald behind his back,” Messinger continued. “Some city officials turned him down just because they saw him as too conniving, too manipulative, too untrustworthy.”
When Trump started his presidency, he mused about spending part of the time in his 58th-floor Trump Tower apartment slathered with 24-karat gold. He was obsessed with coverage from the hometown media: The New York Times, the New York Post, the TV networks based in New York. But New York finally, resoundingly rebuffed him. In November’s election, he lost every Manhattan voting district to Joe Biden.
Trump derided the city as a "ghost town." He changed his residence to Florida. But he couldn't fool New Yorkers: He fled to Mar-a-Lago because he is a pariah everywhere in the city whose affirmation he coveted.
Trump-branded properties in New York have lost more than 20 percent of their value, Business Insider reported. New York prosecutors are building cases to show the Trump Organization’s “extensive and protracted criminal conduct,” the Associated Press reported.
In a final jab, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio canceled millions of dollars' worth of Trump contracts; the city will strip the Trump name from a city golf course and skating rinks.
“We’ll be back in some form,” Trump promised as he departed Washington — fled, it felt like — for a state he once seemed to disdain. The Daily News cover gave him a Bronx cheer: “Trump joins fellow geezers in Florida.”
Trump shows no signs of having learned from his most important apprenticeship. In 1986, Roy Cohn was dying of AIDS complications in his 33-room townhouse off Park Avenue. One powerful New Yorker after another deserted him — including Donald Trump.
Today, New York remembers my cousin not as a master of the universe, but as a broken, lonely figure who was disbarred and discredited. That should be a warning to his favorite apprentice.
From Think Letter
Enjoy this gossip!
BB Lee
2021.02.06 08:54
2021.02.06 12:44
What wishful thinking, buddy! It certainly will make me feel worthy to live longer! Aren't we just happy we no longer get forced to watch his 돼지 눈깔 and listen to his 돼지 멱 따는 목소리 whenever we turn on the TV?
At least I feel better these days NOT to get irritated as often as before by his name all over the newspaper, hopefully, gone forever soon. But I still simply can't get why the fuck so many of his worshipers are dying for him like a cult leader, God forbids! Pray for them all to drink cyanide mixed Kool-Aid to go to hell like Jim Jones' followers!
BB Lee
2021.02.06 13:24
Doc, the number of worshippers is parallel and proportional to his power and wealth.
As Trump has hit the slippery road down the hill, his worshippers will get scarce rather rapidly.
You know how finicky this worshipping business is. Foolish Trump counted on it too much,
especially, he demanded a lot while giving back much less or nothing.
I guess you are the one (one step ahead of me) who suffered most.
Now, as Trump has gone over-the-hill, you (and we, all) should enjoy the gradual decaying
process of his demise. What goes always comes around.
2021.02.06 18:37
I want to see him die in prison. I want to see the clear evidence that he
was elected in 2016 with the help of Russians. If he is out of prison,
I am afraid his living standard may not change at all because of bankruptcy
protection.
Even though he is in prison, Republican Party that is represented by the
regions where poor Whites are dominant may be alive indefinitely. I don't
know we may see a separate descent conservative in America.
2021.02.07 11:49
Well, for Trump to die in prison is too good a blessing for him.
He should die by a firing squad or by being hanged and burned on a cross.
Poor whites (the red necks and others) actually don't belong to the Republican Party.
The poor whites had confused about where they belong. Or they were being used by Trump.
If they ever belong somewhere, it should rather be the Democratic side or to no places,
(Trump was disappointed that the insurrection crowd of January 6th looked to be in a too lower class.
Even Trump would be ashamed to accept them as his own soldiers.)
You know, even the rich and affluent medical doctors don't belong to the Republican Party.
Then you know what I mean.
As Trump's luck dissipates slowly, they will all disappear likewise.
I am hoping that our off-springs will use them as their servants or slaves.
2021.02.08 08:49
Couldn't agree more, doc!
똥물에 삶아죽일래도 똥물이 아까운 놈!
Wonder whether all these 'human garbages', like Southern Baptists, would go around to raise this mother fucker to their cult leader like Jim Jones to worship and drink Koolaid/cyanide together as they did at Jonestown? Less human garbage, better/cleaner the world would be!
Good for them, as well!
BB Lee
P.S. Indeed, this curse 'Human garbage' reminds me of my most shocking and remorseful experience in my career soon after I started to work at Georgetown Univ in 1979. This word/curse almost stopped/ruined my hard earned career here in the U.S. It did happen 40 years ago, barely reaching to 10 full years after I left Korea, so that I was not fully accustomed to new culture of this new world. I never forgot and I will never forget till I die.
As I have said many times here on our website, Trump, no matter what he does,
always dig his own grave and shoot his own feet.
So far, he can stay like a nebulous image of a human being, due to the huge money he inherited
from the equally stupid daddy of his.
Soon or later, he will be left without even a red penny.
Then, Doc, you get your wish come true. And let me join you at the celebration.