America's Descent from City on a Hill to Mafia State

Doing Putin's bidding, Donald Trump is dismantling government, torpedoing the economy and turning foreign policy into a protection racket. It doesn't square with public opinion, but makes Putin happy.

In six short decades America has gone from “We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty” to “You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out. And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out and I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.”

Last Friday’s disgraceful performance by Trump and Vance with President Zelensky brings home just how far we have sunk as a nation. Trump as Tony Soprano and Vance as Paulie Walnuts along with their thuggish shakedown effort to grab Ukraine’s minerals constitutes final proof that America has descended from City on a Hill to a Mafia State.

It’s been a stunning journey from JFK’s Camelot to Trump’s Bada Bing Club. It couldn’t have happened without the passive and active enabling by the American people — see my recent essay, “The Moral Collapse of the American People.” A recent PRRI poll found that 38 percent of Americans (48 percent of Republicans, 38 percent of independents, and 29 percent of Democrats) think the country needs a leader who will “break some rules if that’s what it takes to set things right.” That’s Tony Soprano’s world.

Trashing democracy aside, however, many of Trump’s policies just don’t square with public opinion:

• A Quinnipiac Poll last month shows that 48 percent of Americans disapprove vs 44 percent approve of how Trump is handling foreign policy — with Republicans (88 percent approve) and Democrats (93 percent disapprove) holding diametrically opposite views.

• But the same poll shows that 81 percent of respondents said Putin should not be trusted, including 73 percent of Republicans and 93 percent of Democrats.

• An Economist/YouGov poll in February shows that 65 percent of Americans view Ukraine as friendly or an ally of the U.S., compared to only 11 percent who say the same for Russia, and far more Americans have favorable views of Volodymyr Zelensky (47 percent) than of Vladimir Putin (12 percent). This is true of both Democrats and Republicans.

• Finally, this poll also shows that 51 percent of those surveyed oppose Trump’s/Musk’s firing of hundreds of thousands of federal workers (63 percent of Republicans are in favor vs 11 percent of Democrats).

We therefore face a situation in which the president is vigorously pursuing policies on Russia/Ukraine that most Americans oppose. Strange? Ah, but there’s more.

As he resumes his odd bromance with Russia’s strongman, Trump additionally has taken the following steps:

• Immediately shuttered USAID, an effective purveyor of American soft power, and an agency hated by Vladimir Putin.

• Ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to shut down an FBI task force mandated with countering foreign, mainly Russian, efforts to interfere in U.S. elections, reports the New York Times.

• DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, also acting on Trump’s orders, has forced out over a dozen staff at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, whose mission is to counter foreign (again, mainly Russian) cyberattacks

• In December, the administration terminated the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, the key government agency countering propaganda from Russia and China.

• Trump agreed with Putin, in a lengthy phone call, to expand staff at each other’s embassies. Moscow has always heavily larded its “diplomatic” staff with spies.

• FBI Director Kash Patel is transferring 8,000 FBI special agents from headquarters to around the country to focus on regular crime cases. The bureau furthermore has been ordered to compile a list of approximately 1,000 agents and 2,600 probationary employees likely to be dismissed as part of the administration’s efforts to slash the federal workforce.

The New York Times reports that “Experts are alarmed that the cuts could leave the United States defenseless against covert foreign influence operations and embolden foreign adversaries seeking to disrupt democratic governments.” Former CIA officer John Sipher, who served in Moscow, told the publication SpyTalk in reference to embassy expansion, “And that automatically benefits the Russians because, on top of it all, the FBI, which is cutting its counterintelligence staff, doesn’t have the same kind of resources to track these Russian spies as the Russians have to track our people over there.”

So, Donald Trump is vigorously pursuing pro-Putin policies that are opposed by most Americans, and greatly reducing the United States’ ability to defend itself from foreign interference and espionage. Opening up the nation to foreign attack is not what a president is supposed to do. Rather, he takes an oath “to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

I, and others, have long maintained that Trump is an asset of Russian intelligence, likely recruited around 1987. See my latest piece on this, “Trump Shows His True Colors as Another ex-KGB Officer Nails Him as a Russian Asset.” Many others aren’t so sure, arguing that Trump is simply a fan of the Russian leader, or is leaning into his autocratic tendencies. The key thing is this: whether Trump is a Russian asset, a useful idiot, or mere sympathizer, the end outcome is the same.

Recognizing popular American opposition to many of his policies, Trump and his MAGA minions are working at hyper-speed to put in place the foundations for autocratic rule before widespread opposition can gather enough steam to blunt and reverse his efforts. I refer to the Nazi term for this, Gleichschaltung — alignment or consolidation of power to enable authoritarian control over society. Following their Project 2025 plan, MAGA Republicans have cowed GOP politicians and key corporate and media CEO’s, installed pliant commissars at the FBI, Justice, Homeland Security and State Departments, CIA, Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Pentagon and begun purging senior staff at those agencies as well as top military brass. Now they are gearing up to undercut the news media via bogus lawsuits, and purge the judiciary through impeachments of judges.

I’ve seen and lived this process of imposition of dictatorship during my diplomatic career. It follows a familiar pattern centering on removing or neutralizing key power nodes. Trump smartly began with shapeshifting himself to ride a wave of populism boosted by right-wing media, eliminating Republican contenders through humiliation, packing the Supreme Court, suborning the Republican Party through intimidation and purges, followed by harnessing the vast wealth of reactionary billionaires to expand his power. Recently, he removed watchdog inspectors general and senior Defense Department lawyers who would block illegal orders. Behind-the-scenes Russian connivance also played a role, the full details of which are yet to be revealed.

Now the MAGA Machine is ushering us at rapid speed into the final stages of power consolidation and imposition of autocracy along the lines of Hungary, Turkey and Russia. The boldness and rapidity are so breathtaking that Democrats and civil society have been caught off guard and don’t know how to react. It already may be too late to launch a mass counter-movement. As a political analyst and cognoscente of dictatorships, I readily admit that I am impressed — and deeply troubled.

We are now a Mafia State. Our government is the plaything of a deranged multibillionaire. Lawlessness reigns in the dismantlement of the federal government. Corruption — from brazen emoluments violations to elimination of consumer protections to rigged contracts to open financial cronyism and shady deals with foreign leaders to defacto bribery — is the name of the game.

And two mob bosses — Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump — are set to be in charge of a new world order, public opinion be damned. The Ukrainian people will pay the worst price. European and other traditional allies will be forced to make painful accommodations. The American people will soon realize the mistake they made in returning a recidivist career criminal to the White House — but it will be too late.

Tony Soprano and Paulie Walnuts would be proud. Of course, they would also want a piece of the action.