Trump 2.0 = La Cosa Nostra Writ Large

He’s just offering protection in exchange for a little bit of 'thanks' — so what’s the big deal?

Mar 03, 2025

If you’re trying to figure out what the hell Trump 2.0 and his once ‘Republican’ Party is doing and why, look no farther than the history of the major organized crime families, syndicates, and cartels. In the US, the leading such crime family and syndicate since the 1920’s has been La Cosa Nostra.

Here’s a quick description in a report of the National Center for Justice of the La Cosa Nostra (LCN) crime family organizational structure:

“Each of the so-called families that make up the LCN has roughly the same organizational structure. There is a boss who controls the family and makes executive decisions. There is an underboss who is second in command. There is a senior advisor or consigliere. And then there are a number of “capos” (capo-regimes) who supervise crews made up of “soldiers,” who are “made members” of Cosa Nostra. The capos and those above them receive shares of the proceeds from crimes committed by the soldiers and associates.”1

So, let’s see if this helps make sense of some of the outrageous and radical changes that Trump and his goons are forcing into place:

Trump has said he wants Canada, Greenland, and basically, Mexico too, to come in one way or another under the purview — the ‘protection’ — of the United States. He wants the Panama Canal and has already claimed the Gulf of Mexico. Marco Rubio’s first overseas trip was a series of visits with our South American ‘brethren’ undoubtedly preparing to work with major players there.

Putin wants Europe. He has said as much many times and believes in the ancient ideology that claims that virtually all of Europe is meant to be a part of Mother Russia

Xi in China wants unfettered dominion over Asia and the South Pacific. He is building up China’s military and is spinning-up its reach at a breakneck pace. China is a global power to be reconned with. China is already aggressively enforcing its desired dominion over the South China Sea and therefore, the countries adjacent to it. Taiwan’s ‘independence’ is already likely a mere bargaining chip that Trump will use transactionally for other geo-strategic concessions/goals.

And what does La Costra Nostra have to do with any of this?

Well, it’s the model for what Trump 2.0 is thuggishly working to put in place not just in America, but, with the cooperation of some of his fellow oligarchs, world-wide.

Trump 2.0 is an unprecedented, almost unimaginable plan to divide the world up into three more or less stable domains each ruled by an oligarchy and maintained on the basis of the sorts of transactions and deals that mob organizations make to respect one another’s territories and to otherwise keep all parties happy.

It may be a little bit hard to believe, but here’s what’s being put in play:

Putin and Russia will get dominion over Europe+.
Trump and the U.S. gets dominion over The Americas+.
Xi and China gets dominion over Asia+.

Of course the ‘+’ refers to details to work out over time about who gets what parts of the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and the polar regions and so forth. Trump already tried to get a bargaining chip with Putin in the form of half of Ukraine’s vast natural resources.

If you think this is an exaggeration, I can only suggest that you think on it for a while:

Look at the Project 2025 plan and how broadly and forcefully it is being implemented to undercut and break down and the institutions and values of democratic governance both at home and abroad.
Look at Trump’s own words, which of course come out in rambling, streams of consciousness. He can’t help but boast and preen about his HUGE, GREAT ‘concepts of a plan’ that animate his self-owning Trump Derangement Syndrome. But, in almost every situation, whether that be Greenland, Canada, the European Union, or Ukraine’s President Zelensky, his words are about making an offer that the other parties can’t refuse.
Look at the brutish takeovers of our governing and military institutions, our institutions supporting law and order, by nothing but gangster-like enforcers.
Look at the essentially lawless and Constitution-contemptuous actions by Musk’s Department of Government ~~Efficiency~~ Extinction (DOGE). Musk’s actions amount to ensuring that democratically-derived laws can’t get in the way of the wishes of ‘The Boss.’
Look at how Trump has gone out of his way to confess great sympathy for and trust in Vladimir Putin. And notice how pleased Vladimir Putin continues to be by every action Trump 2.0 takes — and how Putin says so out loud as well. They are becoming so confident in their meeting-of-the-minds that they are now jointly signaling to all that, “Yes, it’s happening and you don’t want to mess with us.”
Look at how much affection Trump has so quickly developed for Elon Musk — who has suddenly become like a surrogate son. Musk appears to have become the muscular, ebulliently entitled, aggrieved, and avenging billionaire son/son-in-law that Trump always wished he’d had. Musk emotes an intimate kind of personal loyalty and devotion to his adopted ‘Papa’ that has resulted in Trump giving Musk wide, unsupervised latitude to act on his behalf in leading the government demolition effort. And we have seen several instances where Musk has overreached, where he has acquired the sort of ‘protected’ status that normally only attaches to a close family member.
Look at Musk’s ‘long-termist’ philosophy and his stated ambitions to abandon earth to its inevitable destruction by what Trump calls ‘all those suckers’ and to colonize Mars and beyond with a select subset of highly intelligent uber-humans. The young Musk is even more of a megalomaniac than Trump. He wants more than just to rule the world. He wants to rule the solar system. Musk, one of a very sick cadre of billionaire TechBros, is the perfect consigliere. He has nothing but contempt for common people. He believes that, to be effective in creating a more efficient and effective order, it’s essential to inflict harm on people. He clearly relishes the cruelty.
Look at J D Vance’s very public and mobster-like warnings to European allies: his monstrous encouragement of European Neo-Fascists; and his warning to everyone else about who is best situated for the new world that Trump 2.0 is putting into place.
Look at the pardons of all the underbosses and capo’s that served in Trump 1.0. It’s stunning how much treachery and outright criminal behavior that team amassed and was being held accountable for until Trump pardoned them.
Look at the pardons of the entire mob of insurrectionists that tried and failed to make President Trump into Boss-King Trump. With these despicable blanket pardons, Trump has unleashed and empowered a loyal militia of soldiers and bagmen to do his dirtiest work.
And look, especially, at the ‘so very curious’ silence and acquiescence of almost the entire stable of elected and appointed Republican officials nationwide. They know what Trump 2.0 is trying to do. They’ve been shocked and awed by how effectively and thoroughly Trump’s newest Muskreants and capo’s have proceeded to take control of much of the government. These Republican officials have almost universally assumed a cowardly crouch — ‘standing-down and standing-by’ — to let this unprecedented master plan for global gangster rule play itself out.

And on and on. You can plug just about everything you’ve heard and witnessed in the last 6 weeks— and even in the last 4-8 years — into this plan to clear the way to prepare America to lead in ushering-in a world divided-up into three more or less autonomous autocratic domains controlled respectively by Russia, China, and America.

This is pretty bleak, right? Yes it is.

It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over

But all of this is not a foregone conclusion. We, The People still have the power to intervene in this — and we in the United States won’t be alone.

Knowledge is power; which is why knowledge of what is really planned for us is being so massively hidden by propaganda and chaos about waste, fraud. and abuse.

So we have to free-up and use the knowledge that can empower us.

The legendary Russian chess Grandmaster, Gary Kasparov — turned dissident and exile — was on a panel at the ‘Never-Trump’ Principles First Summit that I attended just over a week ago.

There he said something extremely important that needs to be understood by all of us who want to resist the criminal syndicalization of our country and our world. And I’m paraphrasing but it was, essentially this:

“Do not believe for a moment that we are defeated or that the American ideal has collapsed. It has not collapsed. The American ideal has been betrayed.”

And he and the conversation went on to make the case that the vast majority of the American people absolutely do not and will not support such a betrayal.

It ain’t over.

The American people are not yet nearly aware of the radical plan to dismantle our government, purge our democratic values, and replace both with a criminal autocratic syndicate led by Boss Trump or anybody else.

Mission Critical actions

So this provides us with critical missions going forward:

First, to show our fellow Americans that DOGE and the Trump 2.0 project has almost nothing to do with eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in government — that they have pulled the wool over our eyes — that we are being played.

Second, to show our fellow Americans that the Project 2025 plan is to incapacitate much of our existing government and to strip our institutions of ‘liberal’ democratic ideas, and make way for a more authoritarian way of governing.

Third, to show our fellow Americans that Trump and his lieutenants intend to recast America’s heritage and norms through the lens of a rough and tumble ‘Wild West’ ethic that can return America to a mythical golden age of ‘traditional’ values. And for a large segment of Trump supporters, ‘traditional’ values means Evangelical Christian Nationalist values.

And, of course, this ‘Wild West’ allusion is just another way to deflect from and cover-up what is really the end game, which would be more like a protection racket.

So, this is the scenario and the mission.

We know that most Americans are like us. We believe in our American heritage, in the Promise of America. And we are all made proud and grateful every time we see the visage of The Statue of Liberty.

To save ourselves and to protect our future, we each need only do a few things:

First, we each have to take ownership of this cause. With the wellbeing of our families and children front-of-mind, it will not be hard to summon the confidence of our convictions.

Second, we may need to be a bit bolder than we are used to in engaging, speaking-up, and persisting in leading and coaxing with the truth.

Third, we all must help to get everyone we know to vote about it in every election in every jurisdiction at every level in the country. We must turn the gangsters out!

If we can each contribute to these three things then,

We, The People can and will stop this madness.

A note to readers: I’ve been writing this newsletter for about 18 months now. It’s a labor of love and sanity. But it’s also a commitment to bringing perspective and context to what’s happening. I’m not a reporter. I’m not a jump-up-and-down alarmist. I’m an analyst. (And sometimes I rant a bit.) I’m primarily drawn to plumbing political currents, signals, and strategies. I try to get a handle on the dynamics behind — or undergirding — particular political developments or actions.

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Thanks for reading!

Jon.

Jon Thinks Out Loud

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