“Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Donald Trump cried out early in his first term in the White House. Mr. Cohn, the lawyer and fixer who mentored Mr. Trump during his ascent through New York real estate — and who taught him never to back down, never to apologize and always to threaten opponents with multi-million-dollar lawsuits — was then dead for 31 years. Mr. Trump clearly longed for his ruthless loyalty and his abrasive, no-holds-barred defiance of the American establishment. “Wouldn’t Roy love to see this moment?” Mr. Trump asked Roger Stone, another member of Mr. Cohn’s circle, just after the 2016 election. “Boy, do we miss him.”
In his first term, Mr. Trump appointed a chief of staff from deep within the political establishment: Reince Priebus, the head of the Republican National Committee. He lasted half a year. When Mr. Trump took office a second time, he went in a different direction, appointing Susie Wiles, a mostly behind-the-scenes consultant known for her understated managerial competence. In the wake of the Republican Party’s midterm calamity, most politicians would tack toward conciliation. Mr. Trump instead did what he was taught: He doubled down, replacing Ms. Wiles with Stephen Miller, the dedicated consigliere and attack dog who was the architect of some of Mr. Trump’s most divisive policies. Forty years after his mentor’s death, Mr. Trump found his Roy Cohn.
The similarities are almost spooky.
Both Mr. Cohn and Mr. Miller came from privileged backgrounds. Mr. Cohn was the son of a Bronx judge, and Mr. Miller’s father was a Santa Monica lawyer and real estate investor. Raised in liberal Jewish communities, Mr. Cohn and Mr. Miller both rebelled against their roots. Mr. Cohn in his 20s played a critical role in sending Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair, and was rewarded by becoming chief counsel for Senator Joe McCarthy’s notorious subcommittee on investigations. While still in high school, Mr. Miller made a point of taunting Latino students and became a protégé of the conservative writer and activist David Horowitz.
Mr. Cohn came of professional age in the era of McCarthyism, the strain of Republican thought that morphed during the Trump presidency into a nativist, America First politics of resentments against the old bipartisan establishment — against multiculturalism, globalization and liberal culture. He hated affirmative action and the very notion of diversity. He once told the journalist Peter Manso, “I don’t want to be operated on by a Black who had lousier marks or who is a poorer doctor than a white who was excluded because we wanted to make room for the Black at Harvard Medical School because of some kind of affirmative action to pay for our past sins in suppressing Blacks. I want the best doctor.”
Similarly, Mr. Miller has used his position to oppose diversity, equity and inclusion, and has said that the “white youth population” is “disappearing.” His foundation, America First Legal, has demanded to know, “When did racism against white people become OK?”
Mr. Cohn led a witch hunt against gay people in the government and suspected Communist subversives, and Mr. Miller is the architect of a witch hunt against illegal immigrants. More closely than anyone else in Mr. Trump’s administration, he follows Mr. Cohn’s playbook of aggressive, unapologetic defiance. Mr. Miller even looks and sounds like Mr. Cohn, displaying the same hooded-eye scowls and snarling demeanor.
The quality Mr. Trump most obviously values, however, is absolute loyalty. It’s a trait that served Mr. Cohn well in his dealings with mafia clients including Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, John Gotti, and Carmine Galante. “Roy Cohn was a man that if he liked you,” the president said in a 2005 interview, “he was an unbelievable, loyal friend.”
Mr. Miller has shown Mr. Trump the same fealty. Most of the country has abandoned the president, but Mr. Miller will be by his side, enabling his worst instincts. “I pledge to you, Mr. President,” Mr. Miller said after being tapped for this new position, “my absolute loyalty, my unwavering commitment and my total devotion to your success and the success of this country.”
This is the level of devotion required by a deeply narcissistic, insecure braggart in his waning years. Mr. Cohn understood, as his relationship with Mr. Trump matured, that his onetime acolyte expected an increasing degree of obsequiousness. After a dozen years of collaboration, however, Mr. Trump began to distance himself when it became clear that his old friend and mentor was suffering from AIDS. In his last weeks of life, Mr. Cohn underwent the public humiliation of being disbarred for unethical and unprofessional conduct.
Mr. Miller now has the job of advancing an agenda that Americans rejected. We can expect him to do so as Mr. Cohn did, subsuming his identity, his morality and his professional credibility in service of a mercurial leader who does not reciprocate the loyalty he demands. Count on the Miller White House to fight any attempts to constrain its outrageous power grabs, deploying even more threats, bigger lawsuits, angrier campaigns of retribution and more aggressive anti-immigrant policies than we saw in the last two years.
When it ends badly, as it no doubt will, Mr. Miller should expect to be among those the president blames. Then the eager acolyte will join the long list of people who have embraced the president only to be pitilessly abandoned or destroyed.
Still, Mr. Miller may take heart. After freezing out his mentor, Mr. Trump did invite Mr. Cohn to a farewell dinner at Mar-a-Lago, and showed up at his disbarment hearing to attest to his good character. “He is a very loyal person,” Mr. Trump said, “extremely loyal and extremely honest.” After Mr. Cohn died in 1986, a journalist saw Mr. Trump at the memorial service, weeping.
Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark are the authors of “American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump,”
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