New York Mayor Eric Adams now owes the new president a big favour. Credit: Getty
There is a colourful catchphrase popular in hip-hop culture that describes a kind of mutual respect between hustlers or players — “game recognises game”. It feels apropos of Donald Trump’s rehabilitation of ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the rescue of New York Mayor Eric Adams, both of which came by separate strokes of a pen this week.
Regardless of their chosen parties and aesthetic differences, all three figures are vintage throwbacks from a dying era of US politics: the urban machine boss.
For all the recent talk of Trump as a Bonapartist or an “American Caesar”, he’s more like a supersized version of William “Boss” Tweed, the Democratic honcho who dominated New York politics via an elaborate system of patronage centred around Manhattan’s Tammany Hall. Tweed was only the most notorious example of a bigger phenomenon.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, “bossism” reigned in metropolises like New York and Chicago, cities where social and economic policy was made through political horse-trading and personal networks rife with varying levels of corruption. These networks were led by strong mayors and executives, the Buck-Stops-Here types once wryly depicted in old newspaper editorial cartoons as tough-talking, cigar-chomping kingpins.
One boss that Trump has sometimes looked to with a sense of nostalgia is Meade Esposito, the swaggering king of the Brooklyn Democratic Party from 1969 to 1984. Esposito was described by one one historian as “an ‘old school’ king-maker: a political fixer whose machine was fuelled by loyalty, patronage, and a quid-pro-quo system that resulted in a bevy of municipal corruption scandals and inquiries”. To Trump, though, Esposito was a hero, whom the 45th and 47th president has praised for ruling “with an iron fist”. As Trump told The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman: “I figured that the Mitch McConnells would be like him in terms of strength.”
The boss’s admiration for bossism has now yielded a pardon for Rod Blagojevich. Lord knows that Blagojevich tried to govern like a boss. The problem was that the former Illinois chief executive made the mistake of doing so while Chicago’s machine was being scrapped for parts. The old brand of politics was supplanted by the new Democratic Party as embodied by Clintonite disciples Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama — both Chicagoans who harnessed mass media, celebrity, NGOs, and fundraising prowess, replacing the backscratching loyalists of old with bloodless progressive technocrats.
It has now been 16 years since Blagojevich was impeached and ousted as governor, one of a long line of Illinois politicians imprisoned for political corruption. Among his crimes: lying to federal agents and holding up money to a children’s hospital in exchange for campaign contributions. Most notably, Blagojevich tried to sell access to Obama’s Senate seat in 2008 after Obama left to run for president (the FBI secretly wiretapped Blagojevich saying of Obama’s vacated job: “I’ve got this thing, and it’s fucking golden, I’m just not giving it up for fucking nothing.”)
It was a shockingly blatant and clumsy example of quid pro quo, but it may have been seen as business as usual in a different era of Illinois politics. Consider the example of Jacob Arvey, a Chicago Democratic boss of the Forties infamous for providing virtually anything for residents of his ward, including legal counsel, apartments, and even wooden legs and glass eyes in exchange for votes. His advice in politics was purely transactional: “It’s very simple. Put people under obligation to you.”
But when the well-coiffed Blagojevich tried to put people under obligation in the aughts, he was convicted of a host of corruption-related crimes. In 2010, he appeared on four episodes of Trump’s reality TV show, Celebrity Apprentice, during his national innocence tour before heading to prison to serve 14 years; he only served eight years behind bars before Trump commuted the sentence in 2020 (ending Blagojevich’s prison stint without formally clearing his name or wiping his record).
At the time, Trump made it clear that he saw parallels between Blagojevich’s case and the FBI’s inquiry into his own alleged — and later disproved — “collusion” with Russia. It was notable that Robert Mueller served as FBI director when the bureau investigated Blagojevich and later led the special-counsel probe that would clear Trump of collusion.
Blago has kept a low profile since his exodus from jail. He has been recording Cameo videos and occasionally performing ironic covers of Elvis’ Jailhouse Rock at Chicago street festivals. There was little reason now to pardon Blagojevich, as he has no political favours to return — unless, that is, it’s Trump magnanimously “recognising game”.
Then there is the Eric Adams case. Unlike Blago’s run-ins with the law, his case is more recent, and a lot more complicated to navigate. Adams, a Democrat, was considered an outsider in New York’s 2021 mayor’s race. The former NYPD captain was the polar opposite of Michael Bloomberg’s elite technocrat. He was an aspiring Machine Man, the kind of dealmaking Gotham politician who helped Trump land millions in tax abatements for his properties in the wake of the Big Apple’s fiscal crisis in the Seventies.
But like Blago, Adams got caught playing bad machine politics. In September, he was hit with a five-count federal indictment for bribery, fraud, and campaign-finance violations. Prosecutors alleged that the mayor quietly received more than $100,000 worth of illegal campaign contributions, plus free luxury travel, in exchange for doing favours for the Turkish government. Adams pleaded not guilty, suggesting that he was being targeted with lawfare by the Biden administration because he criticised the Democrats’ loose immigration policy. (In reality, Adams was all for welcoming tens of thousands of newcomers from points south before he turned against it.)
As with Blagojevich, Trump publicly sided with Adams this week, expressing sympathy for his claim that he was unfairly targeted for political reasons. “We need great Judges and Politicians to help fix New York and to stop the kind of Lawfare that was launched against me,” he posted on Truth Social.
In response, Trump’s Department of Justice directed federal prosecutors to drop the corruption charges against the mayor. Remarkably, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove wrote that the decision wasn’t about the merits of the case. Instead, Bove claimed that the case was interfering with Adams’s ability to “devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior administration”. There’s a not-so-small catch. The DOJ left open the possibility that charges could be refiled on Adams following a review.
Perhaps, then, Trump is treating the Gotham’s mayor like an old-fashioned machine boss who is gaming the system for an underling while expecting something in return. Meade Esposito and Boss Tweed would be proud. Game recognises game, indeed.
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SubscribeLet’s get this straight! You believe that there was ever a time when (and more importantly recently) when NYC wasn’t corrupt. Really! NYC built a new 2 mile subway on the east side of Manhattan, for $8 billion, $4 billion per mile. Hamas didn’t steal 12 that to build over 300 miles of tunnels. Daniel Penny gets charged with 2 felonies for protecting innocent subway riders from a dangerous psychotic. Thankfully he was aquited. Trump gets prosecuted for multiple violations for over estimating the market value on loan applications, loans that were fully repaid and which the banks never complained about. In Corona Queens, Roosevelt Avenue is locally known as prostitution alley. Under the elevated train (IRT) illegals, many who are minors, are openly pimping themselves to pay off the cartels who got them across the southern border.
You live in an alternate universe. Or perhaps you have a different idea what is corruption.
The major problem with America, in a nutshell, is that we look at Donald Trump’s 34 convictions for falsification of business records and ask why he should be convicted for it if everyone’s doing it; the better question is why we aren’t going after everyone else, too. It signals a fundamental moral apathy that’s been growing in the core of America.
Why is that the “better” question. If everyone is speeding and you are the only one who gets ticketed, surely you would ask “why me?” and not “why don’t you get 100,000 police officers out here to give tickets to all 1,000,000 people who went over the speed limit on their way into the city this morning?” The system is SO broken, the laws are SO expansive and SO unenforceable (like speeding laws), that “why me?” is the “better” question.
Should we change the system, change the nature of laws, etc.? Sure. In the meantime….why me?
Personally — true story here — I just don’t speed. I haven’t gotten so much as pulled over in a decade. So, that’s probably not the best analogy to try on me in particular.
But to actually address the point, let’s drill down a bit more. Do you think that falsification of business records should be legal? Does accountability in business law seem like an unimportant thing to you? Should businesses be able to lie about anything and submit falsified records without consequence? That seems like a pretty bad decision to me.
So, yeah, I think speeding enforcement could probably be stepped up a bit. I would suggest that if you get pulled over for speeding and have to pay a fine, you should probably take accountability for your actions and reduce your speed.
So because people have got away with murder in the past that means I should be able to stab people with impunity?
Let’s see: Trump’s creditor did its own due diligence, made the loan which was paid back with interest and on time, and said it would happily do business with him again. But do go on about the phantom crime that no one but Alvin Bragg touched.
The problem for your argument is that Trump wasn’t just charged. It wasn’t just Alvin Bragg — it was him, the judge, and a jury of twelve of Trump’s duly empaneled peers. He was convicted unanimously of 34 counts.
Trust me, I’ve got a bitter taste in my mouth about it as well — just for the opposite reason. Where you seem to think that Trump shouldn’t have been convicted simply because corrupt NY Democrat officials don’t charge the thousands of others who do it, I believe the opposite: American business is rife with lying, cheating, and crime. Everyone who commits the same crime should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. It’s just frustrating to me because, as always, partisan ingroup membership prevents people from reaching the logical conclusion even if they’re able to see the problem.
Kyle- What do you think is the most damning of of the “34 counts.”
Also can you run me through how Mr. Bragg was able to toll the statute of limitations?
Finally, can you explain why three lawsuits in New York were not filed until late 2023 when they occurred in the distant past? I’m just curious about the timing.
Derek Chauvin was also found guilty unanimously. So what?
12 Democrat jurors and 1 Democrat judge convicted 1 Republican. No, that does not make him a convict, so sorry.
If it was Adams who helped Trump secure the abatements, then surely it’s just a case of Trump returning a favour. Trump literally owed him one.
Why this author should write for a tabloid, and not for Unherd; is the title of MY article. This scurrilous piece is an embarrassment for this august publication. I subscribe to Unherd to become smarter, not be subject to a mudslinging rant by an extremely mediocre author.
So the Cosa Nostra has never had influence or made money in New York when it was run by the Democrats ?
Don’t you mean Kosher Nostra?
You’re not allowed to criticise Israel or any Jewish people on here, they’re a protected species
Micro article in macro times.
Private Eye is certainly more suited to this exercise in selective reporting and guilt per association innuendo. Surprised game hasn’t already recognised game.
UnHerd should certainly recognise that we don’t want to play with lazy
This is one of those articles that after I read the headline I skip right to the comments!
So do I
Adams seemingly welcomed migrants until the Biden Administration allowed over a quarter of a million illegals to over run the city causing widespread alarm not to mention burdening NYC with billions of dollars of expenses taking care of the illegals. In light of this, Adams could see his own political capital wash away before his eyes but made the mistake of publicly beseeching the Biden Administration for help. But Biden and his buddies were so corrupt and so deep into the illegal migration mess that by necessity they had to crush Adams. And thus the tale began.
I hate Trump with a passion, but the man has a genius for PR. Trump takes some pretty damning allegations of colluding with the Russians, whittles the case down to circumstantial evidence (of which there remains much), and then declares victory… in the process of which his bombastic nature distracts from the question of why Russia would want Donald Trump as President in the first place — which they do.
It’s a stunning kind of low cunning and brazen self-confidence which is the essence and nature of Donald Trump. He’s the archetype of the New York conman, as AOC put it recently.
EDIT: And just to give some more substance to my opening sentence, I’ll put it like this: Donald Trump is the kind of man who looks at an incredibly divided American electorate and sees only personal opportunity where he could see reconciliation; he looks at a world in which reclining American power emboldens autocrats and sees opportunity for his own landgrabs instead of restoring stability.
He is a myopic, brittle man who’s also an adjudicated sexual assailant.
EDIT v2.0: It looks like I accidentally triggered some kind of ingroup/outgroup response there. My bad.
Still with the Russians, Russians, Russians. Did you miss where no evidence ever accompanied those allegations?
The issue has never been that Trump was elected. It’s that the political class went so far off the rails that a candidate like him became possible.
You seem to have missed the point. Trump successfully whittled down the case into circumstantial evidence — again, of which there is much. The genius move was in somehow transmuting the lack of concrete evidence into an idea which has actually stuck: that because there is no evidence which concretely ties Trump and Russia into a grand conspiracy, there is therefore no relevance to the fact that Russia did, indeed, do its very best to foment chaos in America by covertly promoting Trump.
I mean, since we’re talking about ancient history, here… remember how the Hunter laptop even arose? It simply “found its way” to a computer shop owned by a BLIND MAN. I’ve personally held for a long time that it actually did bear all the hallmarks of a genuine Russian influence campaign.
Why? It’s quite simple, really — Russia was laying the groundwork for its invasion of Ukraine. Russia wanted us as divided and isolated as possible.
I don’t believe there’s any evidence that Trump is some kind of Manchurian candidate. I think he was a pleasant surprise and known quantity for Russia which it then gleefully exploited.
As far as collusion… we’ll never know. Given that he’s much more transactional than he is principled, the self-righteous indignity of the man and his supporters has always struck me as performative and “crocodilian,” but…. I don’t understand why Russia is a verboten topic. It seems more relevant than ever.
Sorry but which case?
If we are talking about the Peele dossier :
The FBI based an investigation during a presidential campaign based on a dossier compiled by one of the candidates and put the opposing team under covert espionage. Using fruit from the poisonous tree is shocking in the US in any circumstance, in an election, it is staggering.
The FBI then drip fed information from its illegal operations to selected media undermining the legitimacy of the acting president.
Aka treason.
This is the USA indulging in banana republic shenanigans and you are crying (Russian) wolf?
I certainly can relate to not liking the man, but my understanding of justice is not relative, it is absolute. The end never justify illegal means
You cannot seriously be complaining about the defence of an innocent till proven guilty man in an illegal prosecution?
The FBI started its interest in collusion with George Papadapoulos who was approached by Russian intelligence, offering dirt on Hillary Clinton. It would have been negligent if they hadn’t wanted to investigate. Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort had been Victor Yanukovich’s manager (he was a Russian asset) in Ukraine. Trump encouraged the FSB hack of the DNC emails. There was no hoax.
Eric Adams is the rare dem official to live under a policy he supported – sanctuary cities – then notice the problems with and speak out. The Biden White House could not allow that to go unpunished.
Great essay! Kudos to the author!