Extorting the American Dream…
Systematically, day by day, the Trump Administration has orchestrated an extortion scheme similar to the American mafia’s protection rackets. The threats of punitive measures against institutions like universities, television networks, and media outlets have spread fear and collected millions for the president’s personal and political funds. Fear and intimidation are the dual tools ensuring his targets surrender and follow his outrageous demands. They comply because of the relentless pressure and the power he wields. He is a dealer by trade, making offers they cannot refuse.
We are witnessing the devaluation of the American Dream, one institution, one set of values, one ideal at a time, by a thug. Gangsters call it a “bust out” as they manipulate their way into a business by offering ‘protection’ at a cost beyond their victim’s ability to pay. The Sicilian mobs refer to it as “pizzo,” which means offering fake security to a business to protect it from being targeted by the syndicate itself. Fans of The Sopranos will remember the “bust out” schemes devised by Tony’s crew and how they devastated innocent victims. One episode showed merchandise arriving through the front door, only to be smuggled out the back, loaded onto trucks for sale on the bootleg market. Leaving behind a trail of illicit plunder, the stolen goods move through the shadowy world where bankruptcies thrive, taxes go unpaid, and customers happily closet their contraband.
In one of the more vivid scenes in The Godfather, Part II, a local mafioso named Fanucci held young Vito Corleone’s (Robert DeNiro) neighborhood hostage, demanding tribute and respect. Don Fanucci was extorting local merchants in a time-honored Sicilian practice known as pizzo. As the scene is played out in the script, young Vito makes Fanucci an offer he shouldn’t have refused. Don Fanucci explains to DeNiro’s character that he is simply taking a small share of the profit- “dipping his beak.”
The pizzo (Italian: [ˈpittso]) is protection money paid to the Mafia often in the form of a forced transfer of money resulting from extortion. The term is derived from the Sicilian pizzu (‘beak’). To “let someone wet their beak” is to pay protection money. The practice used to be widespread in Southern Italy …
Donald Trump is likewise “dipping his beak” with an extortion scheme immunized by his hand-picked Supreme Court. When he applies tariffs, for example, he is actually extorting tribute from American taxpayers who pay the actual costs, which he then redistributes to enrich himself and his wealthy friends. He encourages legislation forced through Congress by spineless Republicans who act as made members of his crew, currying favor for their corrupt “Don.” The model he has adopted for governance is that of a criminal organization, basically running a RICO scheme from the Oval Office.
Beyond the personal enrichment and the economic shakedowns, there is an even deeper devaluation of America as an intellectual break from the past. Trump’s America is an unidealized version that mimics feudal societies with Mar-a-Lago as the moated center of authoritarian rule.
Jamelle Bouie, in a recent editorial column in The New York Times, points out the philosophical underpinnings of the Trumpian delusions of American greatness, of how America represented something never seen before. It was a singular break from the way nations in the past had been governed. Bouie quotes Vice President Vance lecturing European leaders in an address he made in Germany last February:
“America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.” And although he did not say it explicitly, Vance seemed to suggest — in recounting his personal connection to the heritage of the United States — that American identity was less about our national ideals than it was attachment to “a homeland.
“If you think about it, identifying America just with agreeing with the principles, let’s say, of the Declaration of Independence, that’s a definition that is way overinclusive and underinclusive at the same time,” the vice president said, taking aim at traditional American creedal nationalism. “What do I mean by that? Well, first of all, it would include hundreds of millions, maybe billions of foreign citizens who agree with the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Must we admit all of them tomorrow? If you follow that logic of America as a purely creedal nation, America purely as an idea, that is where it would lead you.”
- Jamelle Bouie, “JD Vance Claims One of Our Worst Traditions as His Own.”
Bouie goes on to cite the VP’s incredibly uninformed beliefs about what America is, and worse, what it is about to become. Vance is advancing a view that is in contradiction to the historical record. It was a view discredited as part of the constitutional necessity for the adoption of the 13th and 14th Amendments, which rendered the infamous Dred Scott decision moot. The two amendments established the framework for the inclusive restatement of the rights of citizenship in a post-Civil War America.
Bouie writes in conclusion:
Trump and Vance envision a world of tiered citizenship, each in his own way, where entry depends on heritage and status rests on obedience. The best traditions of our country make this difficult. And so they have found refuge in our worst.
- Jamelle Bouie, “JD Vance Claims One of Our Worst Traditions as His Own.”
In the dark tradition of pizzo, we are now experiencing governance by a kakistocratic regime. The Trump regime is selling most of its citizens bogus protection from itself while the rich and powerful friends of the administration reap huge rewards. A Kakistocracy is government ruled by the least qualified, most unscrupulous among us- the Peter Principle on steroids. It is a government that demands tribute and allegiance — creating an ever-growing reservoir to dip its beak.
As we endure the scaling back of democracy in America, it is well to remember the closing words of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address:
…that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
This new birth of freedom called for in the middle of a brutal conflict was his vision of the spoils of a war fought over slavery. Lincoln focused on reconciliation and a reinterpretation of America, melding both the spirit and the letter of the promises made in the Constitution. The assumption that the founders simply didn’t think about the limitations that they placed on freedom is mistaken. They envisioned an egalitarian oasis for all but some. They knew better, but then decided that freedom and equality had to have limitations imposed because they all couldn’t agree. They settled on a compromise that tried to cover up what they knew:
“We have seen the mere distinction of [color] made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.”
-James Madison, Records of the Federal Convention, 1787
And,
“Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a Country. As nations [cannot] be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes & effects providence punishes national sins, by national calamities.”-George Mason, James Madison’s Notes on the Federal Convention, 1787
The policies being enacted under the so-called ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ reveal no such tugs on troubled consciences.
Donald Trump has decided to revert to a vision of America that works for some but not all. His vision for America is a devil’s bargain steeped in old-world traditions born of prejudices and class, of privilege and wealth.
Donald Trump has demonstrated that he is nothing more than a thug, nothing less than a tin-pot despot. He is Don Fanucci with all the malice and arrogance, without the charm. He is Tony Soprano without the therapist and the throbbing conscience.
Originally published at https://vincerizzo.substack.com.
