That’s a quote from an article in the New Yorker about people who are sticking with Trump even though he’s a convicted criminal.
I love the fact that he cites Tony Soprano, the ridiculously fucked-up, penny ante, murderous gangster. It fits but I didn’t think anyone would want such a fool to run the United States of America. I don’t think it’s any accident that he didn’t pick a more standard right wing anti-hero like Dirty Harry. He was a cop and they’re not really sure about them anymore. Best go with the straight-up mobsters.
These people don’t actually want a “shock to the system.” They just want somebody to punish their enemies, period. And that’s you. And me.
Amanda Marcotte had a great piece the other day on this subject:
As the trial progressed, Trump escalated far beyond his tired litany of claims that everything was “rigged” against him, though he kept that pattern up. He’s been experimenting by trying to cast himself as a rakish outlaw. He wants voters to imagine his crimes are about standing up to a corrupt system. In reality, he is corruption embodied; a man who has never acted on anything but self-interest and who only evades justice by paying people off, usually in promised (if infrequently actualized) political favors.
“Trump Leans Into an Outlaw Image as His Criminal Trial Concludes,” read a New York Times headline on Tuesday. In it, reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonah Bromwich outlined how Trump was laying the groundwork, pre-verdict, to spin a guilty verdict into what he hopes is an electoral asset. He’s “surrounding himself with accused criminals and convicts,” they reported, even bringing the notorious Hell’s Angel gangster, Chuck Zito, to trial with him. They note that Trump now valorizes “those prosecuted for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” and that he has sold merchandise featuring his mug shot after his Georgia arrest for his coup efforts in that state. Trump’s tendency to celebrate his own criminality is so extensive that Haberman and Bromwich overlook some important examples, like how Trump repeatedly compares himself to murderous gangster Al Capone or waxes poetic about how much he adores fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter.
No doubt there’s a long history of Americans romanticizing criminals, going back at least to Jesse James or Billy the Kid, who became icons of the Wild West. In the early 20th century, bank robbers like Bonnie and Clyde often became folk heroes. While Mafia movies like “Goodfellas” or “Scarface” usually conclude with the downfall of their criminal anti-heroes, all too often fans focus only on the early parts of the movies, when the bad guys are riding high, before the law and their own demons catch up with them. Most recently, we witnessed how all too many people thought Walter White was the hero of “Breaking Bad,” instead of a character study condemning the darkness that lurks inside many otherwise “upstanding” citizens.
But even by those standards, there’s good reason to hope Trump’s attempt to cast himself as a charming rogue will fall flat. For one thing, his images from the court are of a tired, elderly man with bad hair and makeup. This is not Warren Beatty sexily robbing a bank as Clyde Barrow or a 2003-era Johnny Depp winking at the camera as pirate Jack Sparrow. But more importantly, Trump’s crimes aren’t a daring good time. They’re just the pathetic scramblings of a loser trying to avoid being exposed as the fraud he is
He’s not a romantic outlaw. He’s this:
