opinion:
HOW TO TELL WHEN A GOVERNMENT STARTS OPERATING LIKE THE MOB
By “mob,” I don’t mean a crowd of angry people running through the streets. I mean the Mob. What used to be called “The Mafia”.
Organized crime has a recognizable method of government. It has hierarchy, discipline, rewards, punishments and rules. In fact, a successful criminal organization may be extremely well organized.
So here’s an interesting question: What would happen if a constitutional government gradually began operating according to the principles of the Mob? How would you know?
You wouldn’t necessarily see guys in black shirts carrying violin cases. You’d look for the principles.
LOYALTY TO THE BOSS COMES FIRST. In constitutional government, an official is supposed to be loyal to the Constitution, the law and the duties of the office. In a mob organization, the important question is: Are you loyal to the boss? Competence is useful. Expertise is useful. Loyalty is indispensable. Once personal loyalty becomes the test for governmental power, the office begins to belong to the boss.
FRIENDS GET PROTECTION. Under the rule of law, theoretically at least, your friend and your enemy face the same law. Under mob rules, you take care of your people. Trump began his second term by granting sweeping clemency to nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with January 6, including people convicted of assaulting police officers. The president unquestionably possesses enormous constitutional pardon power. That’s not the interesting part. The interesting part is the pattern: The people who fought for the boss are taken care of when the boss returns to power.
ENEMIES GET PUNISHED. Trump’s Justice Department fired lawyers who had participated in the federal prosecutions of Trump. The department said they couldn’t be trusted to implement the president’s agenda because they had participated in prosecuting him. Later, Reuters documented pardoned January 6 defendants meeting with Justice Department officials and urging action against prosecutors, FBI agents and judges involved in their cases. Friends protected. Enemies pursued.
REMOVE THE WATCHDOGS. Constitutional governments deliberately employ annoying people whose job is to ask: Where did that money go? Who authorized this? What law permits it? Trump fired 17 inspectors general shortly after returning to office. Maybe every removal can be defended individually. We’re looking for something else: the pattern. A boss doesn’t need independent watchdogs. He needs people who understand who’s boss.
TURN THE INSTITUTIONS INTO WEAPONS. The Justice Department, FBI and regulatory agencies possess enormous legitimate powers. Normally those powers are restrained by laws, procedures and institutional independence. But imagine those powers becoming personal. The question changes from “Has this person broken the law?” to “Is this person with us or against us?” At that point you don’t need gangsters. You have federal agencies.
And here we arrive at Roy Cohn, Trump’s lawyer and mentor during his formative New York years. The method associated with Cohn can be reduced to three wonderfully simple rules:
Attack, attack, attack.
Admit nothing. Deny everything.
Always claim victory. Never admit defeat.
Notice how perfectly those rules fit a system based on personal power. An institution can admit an error. A boss can’t afford to. Evidence against you becomes evidence that your enemies are conspiring against you. Investigation becomes persecution. Criticism becomes disloyalty. Defeat becomes fraud. Prosecution becomes proof that the prosecutors are criminals.
THE RULES APPLY DOWNWARD. There are rules for everybody else and rules for the boss. The distinction doesn’t have to be written anywhere. Everybody gradually learns it. The law still exists. It just doesn’t operate symmetrically anymore.
And that brings us to elections. Trump has attempted through executive action to impose new federal requirements upon mail voting for the November 2026 midterms. The administration says they protect election integrity. States and voting-rights organizations argue that the president lacks the authority and that eligible voters could be prevented from voting. Courts are fighting over it.
Don’t begin with the conclusion. Apply the test: Who benefits? Who is disadvantaged? Who actually possesses the legal authority? And when another institution says no, does the boss accept the limitation—or search for another way to get what he wants?
So here’s the Mob Test:
Is loyalty owed primarily to the law or to a person? Are friends protected? Are enemies punished? Are independent watchdogs removed or intimidated? Are government institutions becoming instruments of personal power? Do the same rules apply to the boss? And what happens to someone inside the organization who says NO?
One incident proves very little. But when the same organizational principle begins appearing throughout a government, it becomes reasonable to ask what kind of organization we’re looking at.
That’s why I use the term MOB RULE.
I’m not claiming Donald Trump is literally a Mafia don. The proposition is more interesting than that:
The machinery of constitutional government can remain standing while the operating principles inside that machinery change.
Congress is still there. The courts are still there. The Justice Department is still there. Elections still happen. The Constitution still exists.
But another operating system can gradually be installed underneath it:
Reward loyalty. Protect friends. Punish enemies. Neutralize opposition. Control the machinery. Attack, deny and declare victory.
A country doesn’t have to abolish its Constitution in order to stop behaving constitutionally.
It merely has to reach the point where everybody understands:
The written rules are one thing … The Boss is another.
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Here’s the Bardo bus now!
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See You At The Top!!!
gorby