This fits neatly with the “Three Stooges Syndrome” theory of Trump’s seeming political invulnerability. His constant stream of outrages, which one would normally expect to be devastating liabilities, end up functioning as chaff. nymag.com/intelligencer/…
As I was recently reminded, Trump was not only notoriously mobbed up, but *openly talked* about how mobbed up he was. It got shockingly little scrutiny during the campaign, partly because it demands deep-dive focus, and there was always some fresh hell to report on.
That’s not to say nobody reported on it. Lots of outlets did. But it never really stuck, presumably because there wasn’t any smoking gun directly implicating Trump in the crimes of the literal mobsters he was habitually in business with, even though you’d think that’d be enough.
David Cay Johnston, for example, did a good piece for Politico, though it screams out for follow-up investigative reporting. politico.com/magazine/story…
