Most people are familiar with the term “protection racket” which is famously used by the Mafia to extort people and businesses to 1) make money and 2) keep people in line. They guarantee to ‘protect’ you or your business from harm if you pay them money and/or do them a ‘favor’. Of course, if you fail to pay or do the requested favor, they are also the ones that will cause harm to your or your business. That is exactly how the current Trump administration is operating. Trump and his lackeys are trying to shakedown and extort countries, businesses, people and universities to get them to do what they want.
The Trump administration is doing exactly this to Columbia University. It stripped $400 million in funding from the university and then sent a letter to the university laying out a number of conditions the university had to meet in order to get the funding restored. This is a classic shakedown that would make John Gotti, former head of the Gambino crime family in New York, proud. Columbia is just the first of many universities the Trump administration is targeting for this same extortion scheme.
Let’s be clear. This is not about anti-Semitism. This is not about DEI. Those are simply excuses to shake down universities to get them to comply with teaching the Trump party line and stifling any opinions or discussions that might be critical of the Trump regime. This is exactly what Viktor Orban did in Hungary. It is right out of the authoritarian playbook.
Increasing tariffs on our allies is the same exact thing. It has nothing to do with economics, bringing jobs back to America or any of those other bullshit excuses. It is simply about getting other countries to pay ‘protection’ to the United States in terms of money, fealty or, in the case of Canada or Panama, agreeing to be annexed by the United States. If people or businesses engaged in this same type of behavior, it would be viewed as criminal and prosecuted as such. Extortion is a crime, but Trump is using it as a political tool.
Remember how Trump tried to extort President Zelensky the first time? He illegally withheld military funding for Ukraine to try to get Zelensky to say that Biden and his son were under investigation in Ukraine so it would help Trumps’ election chances. It was a quid pro quo, and he was impeached for it. Unfortunately, Mitch McConnell and his merry band of Republicans couldn’t muster the gonads to convict Trump on the impeachment charges.
Trump is even trying to shakedown the legal profession. He has specifically targeted law firms because they represent some of Trump’s adversaries or people who have disagreed with him. He has pulled their security clearances and denied access to Federal buildings which makes it almost impossible to do their jobs. No doubt, if they would agree to not represent people Trump didn’t like or agree to not bring lawsuits against Trump or his administration, they would find their clearances and access restored. It’s simple extortion. It would be a crime in any other context.
The administration has stripped almost all foreign aid from a number of countries and organizations. This is just another example of extortion at work. If any of these countries or organizations bend the knee to Trump and agree to comply with whatever the whim of the moment is, I would be willing to bet some of that money will be restored. But now it will have a string, and that string can be pulled by Trump at any time.
The Trump/Musk wrecking ball is slashing and burning its way through the Federal government, but I think it has very little to do with finding cost savings. It is being used as a tool to extort and control people, businesses, and countries. The United States of America under the Trump/Musk regime has become the largest protection racket in the world. And Trump is nothing more than a wanna be Mafia boss – albeit with the backing of the U.S. economy, a huge army and nuclear weapons in his extortion tool kit.
It’s not about cost cutting. It’s not about DEI. It’s not about anti-Semitism. It’s not about national security. It is simply extortion. Extortion is now the core principle behind both domestic and international policy. The Cabinet clowns and court jesters also known as Republican Congresspeople are just all part of Trump’s goon squad. And who gets rich in a protection racket? The people at the top!
Everyone needs to understand, once you start paying for protection, the cost never goes down, it always goes up! Some people soft pedal what he is doing and say Trump is just very ‘transactional’. I prefer to call it what it is. He is engaging in extortion. In short, the ‘Trump policies’ are all based upon extortion, revenge, and greed – with a dash of racism and misogyny thrown in. No further analysis is required.
The sooner the Democrats come to terms with the fact this is not so much a political battle but more like a turf war between two powerful mafia families, they can come up with a real strategy to ultimately win this battle. Until then, expect the goons to keep knocking at the door.
