Don’t Ever Take Sides Against the Family
By: Maureen Dowd, as told to NYT Pitchbot
Just when I think they are out, Trump keeps pulling my family back in. After last week’s verdict, my sister Peggy got back together with Donald faster than Kay got back together with Michael. And when post-trial drinks with my brother Kevin turned into a Joe Pesci scene from ‘Goodfellas,’ I wished that I was home alone. Leave the gun, take the martini.
Capo di tutti capi Trump has finally united the five families of the Republican Party. Who cares if 45-going-on-47 is ready to 86 our democracy? Electing a convicted felon seems to be an offer conservatives can’t refuse.
The Trump trial was a bigger snooze than ‘Cotton Club,’ but Donfather II could be even more gripping than the original four years. Will Michael Cohen go out like Frankie Five Angels? Will Marjorie Taylor Greene end up like Moe Green? Will Trump’s veep be a wartime consigliere like Elise Stefanik or a Tom Hagen like Tom Cotton? Trump’s signals that he may never leave office have been about as subtle as a Sicilian message, but if Donfather II gives way to Donfather III in 2028, we can at least be thankful that Ivanka is a better actress than Sofia Coppola.
Trump may have golf courses in Scotland but Joe needs the luck of the Irish. It’s Pride Month. You never know what you might find in that pot at the end of Finian’s Rainbow. Let’s just hope it’s not a horse’s head.
The trouble is everyone loves an outlaw, so Trump’s jailhouse rock ploy could land Biden in heartbreak hotel. Even if Trump’s no sexy rumble fish, his conviction has been quite a fundraising rainmaker. He’s already gotten millions from casino mogul Miriam Adelson without having to deal with any pesky Nevada senators. Viva Las Vegas!
The solution here might be more Gerald Ford than Francis Ford Coppola. It’s time for Joe to summon gal pal Kathy Hochul for a Conversation – one from the heart – and explain that if the Don ends up an imprisoned martyr, MAGA will rise up like Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula,’ and we’ll have ‘Apocalypse Now’ on our hands. Better to beg for a pardon than to promise Trump the rose garden. (But does chatty Kathy even have time for any more New York stories? Her nixing of congestion pricing was the biggest automotive box office bomb since ’Tucker: The Man and His Dream.’)
A pardon would lower the temperature and – are you listening, St. Rita? – make my GOP sibs stop giving me the Fredo treatment. I’m tired of being one of the ‘Outsiders’ at the family clambake, Jack. Politically speaking, Donald would cheat death like Vito at the fruit stand, but for all the Kevins and Peggys out there, it might bring more closure than poor Kay Adams-Corleone ever got.
So par-DON me, Joe and Kathy, but give it some thought, why dontcha? Downgrade that kiss of death to a slap on the wrist so the rest of us can fuggedaboutit.
Then again, a couple months at Rikers might not be the worst thing for old Donnie. Heck, it wouldn’t last much longer than a screening of ’Megalopolis.’
Perfect! DougJ has done it again.