We Now Live "in the presence of evil"
The Rotten Legacy of Roy Cohn, Foul Mentor of Donald Trump, Is Why Our Democracy and Civil Rights May End November 5. These Works on Cohn's Life are Key to Understand How and Why This Happened.
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"You saw Roy Cohn testify, you saw that face, star of the magazine covers. I suggest to you that when you looked at that face, you were looking at the face of very real evil.
“Evil can be charming. If evil always came in a disgusting guise, it would easy to recognize, it wouldn't be as much of a threat, would it? Evil can be witty, nothing saying that evil people are dumb. Evil can be cool, particularly when it marshals itself, when its vital interests are at stake. The face of evil can be quick and sharp and can be smarter than any lawyer Richard Dupont can get.
“But the face of evil is a face of . . . evil —Defense summation in People vs. DuPont
Along with The Substance, Ali Abbasi's The Apprentice was Cannes most buzzed about film. Written by journalist Gabriel Sherman, Abbasi’s film explores Roy Cohn’s mentorship of a young Inmate Number P01135809.
Cohn, a slimy and cruel lawyer empty of ethics and morals, rose to fame because of his unethical prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, which resulted in their executions, and his work as chief counsel for the censured and disgraced U.S. Senator from Wisconsin Joseph McCarthy.
Along with Inmate Number P01135809’s sociopathic father Fred Trump, Cohn brought the United States the racist, xenophobic and misogynistic Inmate Number P01135809. Worse yet, Cohn empowered this man of limited capabilities. Though blessed with massive intelligence himself, Cohn misused it for evil and terror.
Driven by a contempt for humanity, the law and strong character, Cohn’s maliciousness and viciousness made people fear him. And it was because of this fear that people did not confront and challenge him (only a brave few did). This allowedo Cohn’s power to increase. The fact many people were weak-willed and self-serving pumped steroids into Cohn’s might.
Only the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court’s five-judge panel checked and ended Cohn and his damage with disbarment. This occurred before AIDS-related complications removed him from the earth.
Despite The Apprentice’s accolades and filmgoer interest, no American distributor picked it up during or after Cannes. Several journalists and thought leaders speculated that fear of retribution from Inmate Number P01135809 and his loony and self-serving MAGA enablers and unhinged MAGA cult members made distributors wary and fearful.
At the end of June though, Briarcliff Entertainment that distributed the Oscar Best Picture winner Spotlight seemed close to closing a distribution deal for The Apprentice. International distributors picked it up immediately at Cannes. That’s great the film will reach international audiences, but Americans especially need to see Abbasi’s current work.
Some critics have said that Abbasi’s film just rehashes information already in the public record, including Inmate Number P01135809’s rape of his first wife Ivana that Harry Hurt III revealed in his book Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald Trump. (She later recanted her accusation made in her divorce disposition, saying her words were not to be taken literally.)
I disagree with those critics. Not enough know that Inmate Number P01135809's criminality, evil and disregard for life, human dignity, morals. art and culture were reinforced by Cohn whose mob ties allowed the below-average Queens developer to enter Manhattan real estate.
Justin Frank's Trump on the Couch, Mary Trump's Too Much and Not Enough and New Lines Magazine’s “The Mass Psychology of Trumpism” (that can be viewed below) are good sources to start understanding Inmate Number P01135809’s origins and psychology. But to really understand him is to understand Roy Cohn.
When Cohn wasn’t eating off of people’s plates, he outright ignored, twisted and broke the rule of law as he worked to rip apart American civil liberties and civil rights. He spent his entire adult life destroying America instead of creating a better one to make the United States “a more perfect union.”
Cohn’s most repulsive act was one that catapulted his career—the prosecution and execution of Julius Rosenberg and his innocent wife Ethel. During the trial, Cohen had ex-parte communications with the Rosenberg trial judge Irving R. Kaufman to execute both Rosenbergs in the electric chair.
Because of Cohn’s legal counsel to McCarthy, people accused of being communist faced his endless wrath. Sometimes they committed suicide. Often they lost work because of the blacklist. Writers and artists who were blacklisted include Lena Horne, Pete Seeger, Langston Hughes, Dashiell Hammett, Harry Belafonte, Dalton Trumbo, Paul Robeson, Lillian Hellman, Lee Grant, Howard Fast and Charlie Chaplain. Watch Pete Seeger and Lillian Hellman’s triumphant returns years after their blacklisting.
All of Inmate Number P01135809’s actions and lack of scruples--not paying bills; litigiousness; clogging the courts with appeals; publicity seeking; lies; fraud; manipulation; hypocrisy; duplicitousness; mob-behavior; theft; taste for human death, violence and abuse; racism; bigotry and contempt for humanity—were blown-up by the power-hungry and immoral ice-blue-eyed mamma's boy Cohn.
Cohn’s disrespect of the law and refusal to pay his bills and taxes resulted in numerous lawsuits filed against him. Those he always appealed. Cohn knew his ubiquitous appeals would slow down the gears of justice. His corruption also put those around him at risk for criminal liability.
Tony Schwartz, the real writer of Inmate Number P01135809’s The Art of the Deal, feels shame and horror for his role in Inmate Number P01135809’s rise that has plagued the United States and damaged the mental health of the country. Schwartz does hold responsibility but not all of it. He is also not the cause of our constant stress, trauma, broken discourse, destroyed relationships with family and friends, damaged psychology and weakened stamina.
All that is because of Cohn. Cohn’s work and legacy has infected the U.S. government and GOP politics now and had infected it decades before. This villain gave us the callow and cowardly cult-leader undeniably disintegrating into untreated dementia, which is the actual elder abuse occurring in front of us. Activist, comedian and actor Hal Sparks’ sharp ears picked up that Inmate Number P01135809 defecated on himself during the first Presidential debate. We are diverting our eye to thd shiny object instead of the evil playing before us day in and day out.
To learn about or better understand Cohn, here are several revealing works.
Where’s My Roy Cohn?
Matt Tyrnauer's 2019 documentary opens with a quote from lawyer and author Jim Zirin who said with Cohn “[y]ou knew you were in the presence of evil.” Featuring interviews with Cohn's cousins, a former lover, journalist Ken Auletta and even the pardoned felon and insurrectionist who Cohn also mentored Roger Stone, we are given a comprehensive and inside look into Cohn’s life, crimes, cruelty, internal and external anti-Semitism, suspected murder, bad face lifts, closeted and self-hating homosexuality, vanity, hypocrisy, hedonism, greed, death from AIDS, disbarment and abandonment from society.
Toward the documentary’s end, his cousin Anne Roiphe points out:
“Roy was an evil produced by certain parts of the American culture. There always is the possibility of another person who cares not about our traditions or our laws or our protections who can come in and wreck it. And wreck it for the weakest among us and the most vulnerable.”
At the moment, Where’s My Roy Cohn is available to watch for free on YouTube.
Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn
Directed by Ivy Meeropol, granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, this incredible and powerful Cohn documentary uses her family's tragedy to frame her 2020 film. She centers her father the defiant Michael Meeropol whose inexhaustible parrhesia and fight for justice continues even after Cohn’s death. Building on Tyrnauer’s documentary, Ivy Meeropol titled her documentary after Cohn's panel on the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
The documentary further rounds Cohn and exposes not just his money laundering but how politicians, journalists, celebrities and just plain self-centered and stupid people who shared Cohn's lack of moral compass kept him afloat.
Sound familiar?
Along with Michael Meeropol and his brother Robert, the documentary features interviews with the always hilarious cult filmmaker John Waters and Cohn’s Provincetown neighbor the artist and gallery owner Anne Packard. Other interviewees include Nathan Lane, journalist and biographer Peter Manso, playwright Tony Kushner, a former U.S. State Department staff member and a legal reform attorney who went after Cohn, calling him “one the most evil presences . . . in our society . . . . [Cohn] was not just a lawyer for the mob but an active participant.”
Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn is available to watch on Max.
Citizen Cohn
Before MAGA curdled his 180-IQ brain, James Woods starred in HBO’s 1992 film adaptation of Nicholas von Hoffman’s Cohn biography. Don't let the risible early 1990s trailer dissuade you. This television movie provides a nice introduction to the despicable Cohn.
In brilliant casting, the Oscar-winning and once blacklisted actor Lee Grant plays Cohn's obnoxious, cruel and tyrannical mother Dora. Well until his adulthood, Nora babied, enabled and palliated her vengeful and wretched son.
At the moment, Citizen Cohn is available to watch for free on YouTube.
McCarthy
American Experience aired its episode on disgraced U.S. Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy in 2020. Cohn was not the focus, but his involvement in the brutal red-scare Congressional hearings play a significant part in this documentary.
Interviews include ones with journalist and Dean of the Columbia Journalism School Jelani Cobb, historians, McCarthy family members and targets and grassroots McCarthy campaigners, providing nuance and structure into McCarthy’s infuriating and tragic story and one of America’s darkest moments.
McCarthy is available to watch on PBS Documentaries
Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika
Tony Kushner won a Pulitzer and Tony Award for his play that included a fictional but dipped-in-reality Cohn. Without luck, I had tried to find a YouTube video of the above scene with Nathan Lane portraying Cohn on stage. I still want to include it and have instead used HBO's film adaptation of Angels in America where Al Pacino portrayed Cohn. This scene emphasizes the depths of Cohn’s evil and lust for blood and achieving power regardless of human cost.
Lane 18 years later won a Tony for his portrayal of Cohn.
Angels in America is available to watch on Max. A copy of the play to read can be purchased through any brick-and-mortar bookstore or any online bookstore.
Citizen Cohn: The Life and Times of Roy Cohn
The 1992 HBO film was adapted from legendary journalist Nicholas von Hoffman’s 1988 Cohn biography. Von Hoffman addressed Cohn’s early life, adulthood, and professional life along with his crimes, disbarment and hard death.
Using interviews with family, colleagues, and friends, the biography has been described by some readers as sleazy. The fact it has been republished by the controversial Skyhorse Publishing complete with a foreword by the now-imprisoned Steve Bannon may give readers pause. Used copies of the original hardcover and paperback, however, are available through Thriftbooks, EBay, Abe Books and local libraries.
Citizen Cohn: The Life and Times of Roy Cohn is published by and available from Skyhorse Publishing if you just want to rip out the Bannon foreword.
Gossip Men: J. Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and the Politics of Insinuation
Scholar and Carleton College history professor Christopher M. Elias uses the critical lenses of gossip, national security, gender and sexuality to provide evidence for his “surveillance state masculinity” argument. He asserts that the identity of hypermasculinity creates an effective leader and nation protector though it is often only a façade. This belief became solidified during McCarthyism.
Despite rumors of their own homosexuality hounding Cohn, McCarthy and Hoover, all three men targeted the rights of and harassed members of the LGBTQIA+ community and women along with suspected communists.
Gossip Men: J. Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and the Politics of Insinuation is published by and available from The University of Chicago Press.
“Exhuming McCarthy”
R.E.M.’s song from its fifth studio album Document focuses on the rise of conservatism, neoconservatism and neoliberalism in late 20th century America that resurrected Joseph McCarthy’s putrid politics and actions. Driving the song and Michael Stipe’s lyrics though is Roy Cohn's twisted spirit.
Document can be found on Tidal, Spotify, through online retailers and in used record stores. If you prefer vinyl, you can try to purchase it through Victrola.
Thanks for this. I learned a lot more about Cohn from your piece.
This is a good read.
I will see these movies on MAX
I will not by the current book with Bannon's foreword.
Thanks so much, for this piece.
I don't know anything about him, except he was connected to Fred Trump, possibly D. Trump too.