The pattern is inescapable \u2013 with just one caveat: organised crime bosses occasionally display more honour<\/p>\n
Behold Donald Corleone, the US president who behaves like a mafia boss \u2013 but without the principles. Of course, one hesitates to make the comparison, not least because Donald Trump would like it. And because the Godfather is an archetype of strength and macho glamour while Trump is weak<\/a>, constantly handing gifts to America\u2019s enemies and getting nothing in return. But when the world is changing so fast \u2013 when a nation that has been a friend for more than a century turns into a foe in a matter of weeks \u2013 it helps to have a guide. My colleague Luke Harding clarified the nature of Vladimir Putin\u2019s Russia when he branded it the Mafia State<\/a>. Now we need to attach the same label to the US under Putin\u2019s most devoted admirer.<\/p>\n Consider the way Trump\u2019s White House conducts itself, issuing threats and menaces that sound better in the original Sicilian. This week the president said<\/a> that a deal ending Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine \u201ccould be made very fast\u201d but \u201cif somebody doesn\u2019t want to make a deal, I think that person won\u2019t be around very long\u201d. You didn\u2019t need a translator to know that the somebody he had in mind was Volodymyr Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The pattern is inescapable \u2013 with just one caveat: organised crime bosses occasionally display more honour Behold Donald Corleone, the US president who behaves like a mafia boss \u2013 but without the principles. Of course, one hesitates to make the comparison, not least because Donald Trump would like it. And because the Godfather is an … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}