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Our Don, Our Paisan
A close friend, whom I’ll leave nameless for obvious reasons, is an expert on all-things Italian, as are most Italians. He knows a lot about the Mafia. He’s actually related to Francis Ford Coppola, director of every guy’s favorite film, The Godfather. He grew up in Brooklyn and spent time in the Mott Street area of Little Italy. In a curious but related twist, he knows a lot about Donald Trump, having watched and even studied the man for decades. He doesn’t really like Trump, though he has long been intrigued by him and voted for him three times as the lesser of evils, given sordid characters like Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sleepy Joe, and the cackling Kamala.
One late evening, smoking cigars on my porch, my friend shared a fascinating observation on Donald Trump that held me spellbound. He compared the Donald — the Don — to a Mafia don. In tantalizing detail that I can’t do justice to here, he related how Trump, like a Mafia don, rewards those who are good to him, favors those who do him favors, but, conversely, blasts those not good to him and strongly disfavors those he believes betray him. My friend waxed almost lyrical with this alluring analogy by making several informed comparisons to “Don Corleone” of The Godfather, plus other real-life Mafia kingpins he had studied.
I was captivated by the comparisons.
Naturally, many readers will construe this analogy as a terrible insult. The progressive will bark: “Correct! Trump is a crime boss!” But the progressive should not rush to judgment. In fact, much can be said about — and in favor of — many Mafia dons. To that end, I would commend to readers the brilliant insights of the late Luigi Barzini, a dear friend of this magazine and our founder, R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.
Luigi and Bob were tight, with our founder spending much time with Luigi’s famiglia in Italia. Decades ago, Luigi published his classic, The Italians, a must-read for anyone interested in Italian culture. Among his splendid insights, Barzini was indispensable on the Mafia, making nuanced distinctions between crime bosses, rackets, the American mob, and more traditional Mafia in Sicily and elsewhere (such as Calabria, where my people hail from).
As Barzini noted, many old high-ranking Mafia were “good fathers, good husbands, good sons; their word is sacred; they fastidiously refrain from having anything to do with spying, prostitution, drugs, or dishonest swindles. They never betray a friend.” Moreover (and this describes a Mafia figure my father grew up with), “They are always devoted churchmen, who give large sums to the local parish or to the deserving poor. Many have sisters in convents and brothers in holy orders.”
Some of these men viewed themselves as the “only defense against anarchy,” noted Barzini, as the “only valid law” in parts of Sicily. The most skilled of them “prefer diplomacy rather than force, speak in a low voice and prefer to employ old-fashioned forms of address…. Their politics are conservative.”
Oh, yes. Their politics are conservative.
“They want to keep things as they are,” wrote Barzini. They want to conserve. They defend the family, the community, the Church, tradition, and civilization. “The first nucleus of the Mafia is the family,” wrote Barzini. They adore and support their children, their family — alla famiglia. (Trump is the same way.)
Oftentimes, the Mafia don was a force for good, especially in cultures rife with government corruption.
Oftentimes, the Mafia don was a force for good, especially in cultures rife with government corruption. Though far from being angels — many being outright criminals and even murderers — often the don did good. Italians found much to appreciate among these maintainers of order in their community. Of course, conservatism is first and foremost about conserving order. Order is the highest virtue for the conservative. The conservative seeks what the likes of Russell Kirk, Ronald Reagan, John Paul II, and Thomas Merton referred to as “ordered liberty.”
In many Italian villages, the Mafia don was the enforcer of order. “Order has to be preserved,” wrote Barzini. “Justice must be assured.” A good don prevented chaos, and the best did so “without undue recourse to violence” and “scattering corpses.”
Such dons were respected (and frequently feared), sometimes even revered, such as the legendary Don Vito Cascio Ferro or the “Sicilian patriot and good Catholic” Don Calo Vizzini, whose funeral was worthy of a prince.
The Mafia head held a position of honor. Thus, the honorific title: Don. As Luigi Barzini explained, “Don is the corruption of the Latin dominus. It means a little more than signore. It is used for noblemen, gentlemen of means, priests, and Mafia leaders.”
That brings me back to Donald Trump.
I share all of this now because of a recent action by America’s Don that Italians really appreciate. President Trump is planning to install a statue of Christopher Columbus on the White House grounds. (Read: Aubrey Harris, “Trump to Honor Columbus With Statue at the White House. Good.”)
Remarkably, the work is reportedly a “reconstruction” of a statue unveiled in Baltimore by President Ronald Reagan but pushed into the city’s harbor by assorted maniacs in the lunatic summer of 2020. What are Trump’s thoughts? White House spokesman Davis Ingle explained, “In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero. And he will continue to be honored as such by President Trump.”
Hilariously, this line was reported as an explicit echo of “Tony Soprano,” the mob boss in The Sopranos. In a well-known scene replayed on YouTube, Tony and his wife talk to their son about his screwball teacher’s claim that if Columbus were alive today, he would be put on trial for war crimes. “He discovered America!” Tony snaps. “He was a brave Italian explorer, and in this house, Christopher Columbus is a hero!”
Bravo, Tony! In Tony’s house and Trump’s house, Columbus is a hero. Of course, he was a hero in the house of every Italian American, including my family on my mother’s side.
My relatives were intensely proud of Columbus. My grandfather and uncles, like Bruno Carnovale and Joe Labrozzi, played cards and drank wine at the local Sons of Italy and served as members of the Knights of Columbus. Every Catholic parish to this day has a Knights of Columbus chapter. The explorer was our fratello, an Italian native son, the first of a long line of paisanos to come to our blessed shores.
Of course, his real name was Cristoforo Colombo, from Genoa, before the dunderheads of Protestant America changed his name to sound like a WASP. They Anglicized damned near everything. Consider some famous Italian American crooners: The cool-sounding Dino Paul Crocetti became the lame “Dean Martin.” The jazzy Anthony Dominick Benedetto became “Tony Bennett.” The darling Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero became “Connie Francis” (Our Dan Flynn said that “Connie Francis” sounded like the name of an old waitress at a truck stop). (Read: Paul Kengor, “Bobby and Connie: A 1950s Romeo and Juliet.”)
Couldn’t these blockheads leave our lovely language alone? Gosh, they even Anglicized Roma as “Rome.” Is it really that hard to spell and pronounce “Roma”?
Anyway, I digress.
Columbus is a hero. Donald Trump, who loves America, also loves the great Italian who discovered America. Fittingly, the Trump International Hotel at One Central Park West sits at Columbus Circle, where the NYPD also sits in an effective second precinct. Crass, classless dirtbags walk by and flip the middle finger to both the hotel and statue (I’ve witnessed that on multiple occasions, as have my little kids). Trump wants such statues to remain. He wants them re-erected, to the point of salvaging a reconstructed statue at the White House.
Those of us with Italian heritage are grateful for this favor from our Don. For that, the Donald, our Don, is our paisan.
READ MORE from Paul Kengor:
Confederate Liberals
A Haunt of Demons Shuts Its Doors … The Fall of Margaret Sanger’s ‘Clinic’
Mike Reagan, Twice Adopted, Rest in Peace
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