"Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." 1 Peter, 5:8
Peter's warning is timeless and we should pay heed to it. Every society, every time period, every nationality, has its demons that prowl the streets or public transportation or social media, trolling for converts to their dark causes.
In the United States in the first half of the twenty-first century that demon is Donald J. Trump.
He may not be roaring as loud or as publicly as in the past, but he is still out and about, scheming with others of his ilk to find ways to disrupt American society and looking for ways to set us against one another. He delights in chaos and disorder.
The importance of knowing your enemy was first written down by the Chinese tactician Sun Tzu (c. 544 BC--c. 496 BC). Like Peter's warning it is timeless, applicable to all times and all places.
I'm returning to Trump, who was after all the reason this blog came into being, to suggest a means of getting to know him.
There are myriad books in print denouncing Trump. If you read only one, I strongly recommend Michael Cohen's Disloyal, A Memoir. Many publications claim to bring you the real, close-up, personal Trump. Most are by people with axes to grind or who are seeking fame and profit. Many focus on special angles (family, sex, politics) and are therefore suspect.
Cohen was personal attorney to Trump from 2006 until 2018. He had grown up around mafiosi, admiring their power and influence, and found his own chance to act similarly in the Trump Organization. He became a fall guy for Trump, going to prison in 2019 when the law was getting too close to "the Boss."
He knows who the skeletons are and where they're buried. The Republican Party and Bill Barr used violence and coercion trying to keep him from writing Disloyal.
I value the book because it corroborates and validates everything I and other writers have said about Trump. On the flip side it lays bare everything we all knew about Trump that no one in public life would say out loud.
Remember them, the cowards and toadies? Cohen has a lot to say about them. He uses the word "sycophant" frequently.
Disloyal is neither a pleasant nor an entertaining read. It is, however, remarkably enlightening. We all know that Trump is an excessively nasty man who surrounds himself with others of his kind. But the levels of sleaze, vulgarity and flat-out evil to which he will stoop in order to get ahead, to win, to beat someone just for the sake of beating them at something, are astounding.
Cohen's description of getting sucked into the Trump cult is fascinating. He is clear about the organization being a cult, with Trump using all the classic manipulative tools of tyrants and cult leaders. Consider this first-person description of classic doublethink:
I actively, rabidly, incessantly, insistently, repeated the lies and innuendo, knowing in my heart that it was wrong--but unable to stop myself. . . . I really and truly had actually taken leave of my senses.¹
Cohen describes it here and there throughout the book, as if he's still trying to figure out just what happened to him.
Interestingly, Cohen points out one way in which Trump differs from most cult leaders: he is not willing to die for his cause. Unlike Jim Jones, David Koresh, and Marshall Applewhite, who died for their beliefs, Trump will never sacrifice himself for anything or anyone.
As we learned from the January 6 insurrection, he will drive his followers to extremes, including self-sacrifice, but will keep himself at a safe distance, watching and egging on, never putting himself in harm's way, because he is, like all bullies, a coward.
Cohen discloses that despite his apparent aggressiveness, Trump dislikes confrontation. Although he made the line "You're fired" famous on his execrable "reality" show, he never personally fires anyone, but has a staff member do the deed. That's also why some White House staff learned they had been terminated via Twitter. Trump hasn't the courage to face someone and say it.
Finally there's the relationship with Vladimir Putin. As Cohen puts it,
Trump loved Putin because the Russian had the balls to take over an entire nation and run it like his personal company . . . an entire society and civilization bent to the will of a single man was how Trump viewed the ideal historical form of government--with him as the man in charge, of course.²
That is the real Donald Trump, and that is the reason we Americans can never let our guard down as long as he is out there roaring and looking for victims.
---Diogenes, 4/24/21
The book: Cohen, Michael. Disloyal, A Memoir: The True Story Of The Former Personal Attorney To President Donald J. Trump. Skyhorse Publishing, New York, 2020.
Your public or university library probably has it. It's also available on Kindle.
¹ Cohen, pp. 118-19.
² Cohen, p. 246.