They don’t make gangsters how they used to
Brady Leonard
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Politicians and wanton criminality go together like burgers and beer on a hot summer afternoon. Elected officials tend to be self-serving and corrupt at best; at worst, they commit unthinkable atrocities ranging from President Andrew Jackson’s slaughter of the Creek villages to FDR’s internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans.
Politicians lead the nation into wars that claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, all while enriching themselves and their handlers. Our leaders, at times, rival the worst villains Hollywood can invent, and with the current size and scope of the federal government, the perverse incentives that go along with wielding the kind of power our bloated, overfunded government provides will likely continue to attract the very types of folks who deserve to wield that power the least.
MORE AMNESTIES WILL ONLY MAKE THE BORDER CRISIS WORSE
Unlike the wicked yet competent villains of the past, the current batch of scoundrels north of Richmond is more Fredo than Michael Corleone. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is in hot water once again, this time for accepting bribes from Egyptian officials in the form of cash, literal gold bars, and a Mercedes in return for influence. The senator even googled, “How much is an ounce of gold worth?” I have to imagine Michael Corleone would have at least used DuckDuckGo. Fellow Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown (OH), John Fetterman (PA), and others have called for Menendez to resign. Apparently his amateurish gangsterism is making the rest of them look bad.
President Joe Biden has seemingly served as don for an international crime syndicate spearheaded by his crack-addicted, prostitute-hiring, illegal gun-buying son Hunter for over a decade. Legendary crime boss Paulie Vario (renamed Cicero in the 1990 film Goodfellas) knew not to use the telephone; Hunter Biden didn’t even know not to get high and leave his laptop full of criminal secrets at a random computer repair shop in Delaware. Jimmy Conway, played by Robert DeNiro, shared the “most important rules of life” with Ray Liotta’s character Henry Hill after Hill’s first arrest: “Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.”
Gentleman Jimmy must have rolled over in his grave when he heard former President Donald Trump boast about the classified documents in his possession: “See, as president, I could have declassified it. Now I can’t. You know?” Always keep your mouth shut, Mr. President.
Unless a future administration takes the Harding/Coolidge approach and hacks the federal government in half, the incentives that promote criminal activity in our leaders will endure, but I believe the public deserves a better class of criminal. A bunch of uneducated Italian gangsters pulled off the Lufthansa heist; the least a sitting U.S. senator can do is learn how to move a few pounds of gold quietly. Heck, our gangsters don’t even wear suits anymore. They just don’t make them how they used to.
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Brady Leonard (@bradyleonard) is a musician, political strategist, and host of The No Gimmicks Podcast.