In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Sam Tanenhous, who has written extensively on the conservative movement, has an essay out this morning on Trump at Vanity Fair, The Godfather Presidency: How Donald Trump’s Governing Style Mimics the Mob . The title promises, but it doesn't deliver. He talks extensively about Trump's formative years, but the fact is that the mob was on its way out starting with the Kefauver Committee in 1950-51 and continuing through the Apalachin Meeting of 1957, the assassination of Albert Anastasia the same year, and Bobby Kennedy's war on the Mafia from 1961-63. The closest association he can draw between the Mob and Trump is with John Gotti, the folk hero mobster, who operated out of Trump’s home borough, Queens, and whom the New York press—and this magazine—covered in the 1980s at the same time they were trailing Trump. Many remember Gotti as the well-dressed goon. Fewer recall the mass demonstrations held on his behalf when he was on trial or the politicians who spo...