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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Final Lesson Donald Trump Never Learned from Roy Cohn
One of Donald Trumps most important mentors, one of the most reviled men in American political history, is about to have another moment.
Roy Cohn, who has been described by people who knew him as a snake, a scoundrel and a new strain of son of a bitch, is the subject of a new documentary out this week from producer and director Matt Tyrnauer. Its an occasion to once again look at Cohn and ask how much of him and his savage, abrasive and amoral behavior is visible in the behavior of the current president. Trump, as has been well-established, learned so much from the truculent, unrepentant Cohn about how to get what he wants, and he pines for Cohn and his notorious capabilities still. Trump, after all, reportedly has said so himself, and its now the name of this film: Wheres My Roy Cohn?
What Cohn could, and did, get away with was the very engine of his existence. The infamous chief counsel for the red-baiting, Joseph McCarthy-chaired Senate subcommittee in the 1950s, Cohn was indicted four times from the mid-60s to the early 70sfor stock-swindling and obstructing justice and perjury and bribery and conspiracy and extortion and blackmail and filing false reports. And three times he was acquittedthe fourth ended in a mistrialgiving him a kind of sneering, sinister sheen of invulnerability. Cohn, Tyrnauers work reaffirms, took his sanction-skirting capers and twisted them into a sort of suit of armor.
Its the past quarter or so, though, of Tyrnauers film that is perhaps most salient at this stage of Trumps first term. It deals with the less discussed but arguably much more trenchant lesson of Cohns lifenot his decades of dark-arts untouchability but his brutal comeuppance. Cohn did not, in the end, elude the consequences of his actions. He could not, it turned out, get away with everything forever. He was a braggart of a tax cheat, and the Internal Revenue Service closed in; he was an incorrigibly unethical attorney, and he finally was disbarred; and only six weeks after that professional disgrace, six months shy of 60 years old, Cohn was dead of AIDS.
Now, less than 14 months out from next years election, with Trump facing historic legal and political peril, its getting harder and harder not to wonder what he might or might not have gleaned from watching Cohns wretched unraveling. Trump is beset by 29 federal, state, local and congressional investigations. Poll after poll shows hes broadly disliked. He could win reelection, obviously, but its true, too, that hes an unusually endangered incumbent. Trump, to be sure, is not weakened by physical sickness, and he has not been pursued by prosecutors and other committed antagonists for nearly as long as Cohn was. And as powerful as Cohn was perceived to be at his peak, he was never, it almost goes without saying, the most powerful man in the world. Even so, the question looms: Will Cohns most accomplished and attentive mentee ultimately suffer a similar fate?
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One hopes! 🙏
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,085 posts)There used to be footage of it on Youtube but they took it down.
Basically, Cohn (played by Al Pacino) is seen alone in his hospital room, slowly dying. He's then visited by the "ghost" of Ethel Rosenberg (played by Meryl Streep in typical excellent Meryl Streep fashion), who he had gotten convicted and sentenced to death by somewhat nefarious means. Rosenberg informs Cohn--with a restrained sense of glee--he's being disbarred.
Cohn then appears to become distressed about his fate and convinces Rosenberg to sing him a lullaby, which she does (Tumbalalaika). When it looks as though he may have passed away, Cohn suddenly snaps to and brags out loud that he was able to get Ethel Rosenberg to sing to him.
dalton99a
(81,073 posts)Sooner and a lot more
TruckFump
(5,812 posts)Thanks for posting it.
IMO, a repeat of the end of Roy Cohn could not happen to a bigger asshole than MF45.
Javaman
(62,442 posts)the orange asshole probably thinks that cohn got lazy and that he, the orange asshole, is better than his master and will not fail.
psychopath/narcissists are like that.