I’ve been grappling with a simple question: “Who created Donald Trump?” 

The Trump family originated in Bavaria, with Trump’s grandfather Frederich becoming wealthy via hotels/brothels in the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. Frederich then relocated to New York City on his way home to Germany. He was subsequently deported in 1905 from Germany back to the U.S. by the authorities for evading military duty (a family tradition). He died in the 1918 Spanish Influenza epidemic, and it was Donald’s grandmother Elizabeth who ultimately started the business that would bear the family name Trump.

Donald Trump is the first American President to have never held elected office at any level of government (unless you count the generals Washington, Grant, and Eisenhower). His was not a typical road to the White House. 

In addition to his complete lack of qualifications for the job, he has consistently exploited his “reality TV” fame on The Apprentice and is in the same league as the Kardashians of those who are “famous for being famous.” 

Something which is missing in most evaluations of the radical power shift in the White House is that the Russians didn’t need compromising videos to influence President Trump. The oligarchs of the modern Russian state are businessmen, like Trump, who see the global market as their playground. It’s more of a “mutual admiration society.” 

Reading NYT reporter Steven Myers’ insightful biography The New Tsar: the Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin (2015) puts the situation in a more realistic perspective. Think of it in terms of mergers and acquisitions—it’s just business, folks! 

We in the West have forgotten how chaotic the 1990s transition from hard-line socialist marketplace to a freewheeling capitalistic economy was in Russia. People like Putin and his colleagues were able to personally exploit the situation and re-make themselves and join the global financial elite.

During this transition, the oligarchs seized Communist Party assets and diverted “communal” funds to their private accounts, thereby establishing institutional “kleptocracy.” 

The oligarchs are the ultimate capitalists, and that’s why Trump admires Putin and his pals. In fact, Trump’s stated intention to run the White House as an extension of his business empire is only following Putin’s already successful model. The Russian oligarchs operate in a similar fashion to other international criminal organizations under the broad term “Mafia.”

I can recommend the Netflix four-part documentary series called Trump: An American Dream. It provided an important clue in the development of Donald Trump as a businessman and the foundation of his business education. 

Roy Cohn, chief counsel for Joseph McCarthy’s Senatorial 1950s witch-hunt for communists and gays in the State Department, became a mentor to Donald Trump as his lawyer and “Consigliere.” Simultaneously, Cohn represented the heads of the five NYC mafia families, and Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch.

In fact, there are some remarkable similarities between Donald Trump and Senator Joseph McCarthy in their rambling, discursive style of public speaking. McCarthy was a morphine addict and alcoholic who died suddenly at age 48 in 1957, after he was disgraced. Trump on the other hand is a tea-totalling, Diet Coke swilling, Big Mac addict who adores former Soviets. So, what’s the connection?

Boston journalist Larry Tye, in his 2020 McCarthy biography Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy, points out that they both used “bullying” as a tactic to dominate people and political agendas:

“The playbook, invariably, is the key. It transformed McCarthy from a crank to one of the most menacing men in modern civilization. Armed with a similar blueprint, Trump rose from sideshow to contender to commander in chief. Neither was sure of the formula in advance—bullies seldom are, but they can sense in their bones how to keep the pot simmering. As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump famously boasted to supporters that ‘I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.’” 

The vicious win at any cost point of view found in Donald Trump’s self-help business publication, The Art of the Deal, was entirely ghost-written by Tony Schwartz  It bonds the stages of Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking to the methods of a mafia chieftain, with a dash of Gordon Gekko’s “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good” philosophy [from the feature film Wall Street]. 

Edward Kosner, the former editor and publisher of New York, where Schwartz worked as a writer at the time, says, “Tony created Trump. He’s Dr. Frankenstein.”

Donald Trump’s affiliation with the mob started during his years building Trump Plaza and Trump Tower (both were built with concrete, rather than steel framing). The five families controlled the concrete business and the associated unions, so any work stoppages would have been fatal, without full cooperation. 

He went on to build casinos in Atlantic City, with boxing and beauty pageants as draws. Do you think that the “boys” might have a business interest in these activities as the money-laundering opportunities piled up?  An Air Mail book review of Wiseguys and the White House by Eric Dezenhall, reminds readers that “Donald Trump openly admits to having dealt with mobsters as a New York real-estate developer.”  

Trump’s admiration for and affiliation with the Russian oligarchs and the US mafia, is a fact. However, it’s his approach to running the White House which is most revealing:

Former FBI Director James Comey believes President Donald Trump’s White House operates like the mafia. “What is happening now is not normal,” Comey wrote in his blockbuster memoir A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership , comparing his visit to Trump Tower with New York mafia social clubs he encountered throughout the 1980s and 1990s as a prosecutor. 

“The silent circle of assent,” Comey added. “The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that puts the organization above morality and above the truth.” ⁷

How this story ends is a mystery to me. Michael Moore in his documentary Fahrenheit 11/9 suggests that Trump is preparing to rule (permanently) by executive order. Critics thought that this was an extreme prediction when the documentary came out in 2018! 

Moore points out that Donald has expressed his admiration for practically every dictator on the planet, including Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. To date, Trump has not tweeted, “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” He’s implied that threat during recent Tariff threats against Canada and Mexico, but I’m still waiting for that line