Where is My Roy Cohn?
Image Courtesy: Vanity Fair

Where is My Roy Cohn?

Donald Trump, at a moment of great insecurity, was heard recently to exclaim, "Where is my Roy Cohn?" It was, at the same time, unsettling and telling.

Unsettling because it revealed much about Trump when he is most insecure.

Roy Cohn played a key role in American history as a person without a moral core and interested only in his own fame and fortune. He was a facilitator to a political monster decades ago. As former Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel and right hand man in the 1953-54 witch hunts of the Congressional Subcommittee on matters of subversion in America, he and the Senator carried out hugely ugly hearings that ruined many lives and indelibly scared the country. Together, they terrorized large numbers of innocent American and tarred them with false charges of internal espionage and communist infiltration. It was a period in American history that most all Americans try hard to forget.

It was telling because it reminded us that Roy Cohn played another unfortunate role later in his life, one that is again shaking our very American foundation.

In the early 1980s, well after McCarthy had died, Roy Cohn became a close mentor and advisor to Donald Trump. And again, Cohn’s self-important and seasoned skills that served him well with McCarthy now were trained on the Education of Donald Trump

No wonder, when things got really tough recently, Donald Trump was heard to say “Where is my Roy Cohn?” But, one needn’t worry. One simply needs to remind the President that there are Roy Cohn’s around him at this very moment. Just think of Devin Nunes and Paul Ryan, to name just two.

So, it’s all going to be okay, Mr. President.

Daniel Socolow
Daniel Socolow: President, Socolow Group. Former Director of the MacArthur Fellows Program, President of the American University of Paris, Vice President of Spelman College. BA, MA, Ph.D.

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