“I believe in America.”
That’s what Amerigo Bonasera, a quiet funeral director, says in the opening scene of the 1972 film The Godfather. As Barbara McQuade explains at the start of her new book, Bonasera has come to Vito Corleone’s dim office to ask him to get revenge for a brutal attack on his daughter. In the end, Corleone agrees, whispering: “Someday, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me.”
McQuade, a former federal prosecutor, takes this as a lesson in loyalty. “What he’s saying is, I’ll do this for you, but now you owe me,” she says. And for Don Corleone, she adds, think Donald Trump. “Every time he does someone a favor—whether it’s an appointment or something else—he expects something in return.”
This idea is at the heart of The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government. It’s a sharp look at how the president is weakening democracy by turning the US into a mafia state, along with ideas for how regular people can push back. The book even has a blurb from Robert De Niro, who starred in The Godfather Part II.
McQuade, 61, is a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and a legal analyst for the MSNBC network. From 2010 to 2017, she served as the US attorney for the eastern district of Michigan. She’s handled major corruption cases, including that of former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, the “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and the Volkswagen emissions scandal.
Now, she turns her prosecutor’s eye on the White House and argues that Trump runs the country like a mob boss. “He uses his power to try to control others, especially people who might criticize him,” she says, sitting outside Comet Ping Pong, a Washington pizza place that was targeted in 2016 by an armed man who believed a baseless conspiracy theory that it was hiding children as part of a Democratic-led child sex-trafficking ring.
“He uses any leverage he can get, inflicting pain to force them to the table to negotiate their own punishment. He’s done it with law firms, the media, universities, and even foreign allies through tariffs.”
McQuade points to an example from her home state of Michigan. “He threatened to delay the opening of the Gordie Howe bridge between Detroit and Canada. Around the same time, the owner of a private bridge nearby made a million-dollar donation to the MAGA SuperPAC. The fix is in: rigging the system to gain power and control.”
McQuade argues that Trump learned this approach decades ago from his notorious lawyer, Roy Cohn. Cohn represented Trump and his father in the 1970s when the Justice Department sued them for racial discrimination. Cohn, a former assistant US attorney and counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s red scare hearings and various mob figures, taught Trump the dark art of surviving legal trouble. “He showed Trump that the way to deal with being charged or attacked is to always fight back, never admit anything, always turn the tables and accuse your accusers. And we see him do that very successfully,” McQuade says.
While Trump’s first term was somewhat held in check by traditional government officials who pushed back against his worst instincts, his second term is different. “He’s learned this time that what he should value isn’t expertise or competence, but loyalty—people who will do what he wants and praise him the way he likes.”
McQuade notes that democratic institutions were turned against the people in 1930s Germany, and oligarchs and loyalists replaced public servants in post-Soviet Russia. Hungary and Turkey are modern examples of the same trend.Democracies can be hollowed out from within. In America, this shows up in what McQuade—borrowing a phrase from House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries—calls the three Cs of the Trump era: corruption, cruelty, and chaos.
The corruption is blatant. McQuade points to Trump’s pardons for January 6 rioters and political donors, his acceptance of a $400 million plane from Qatar, and his cozying up to tech billionaires who want favorable merger rules—all of which violate the Constitution’s emoluments clause.
The cruelty is performative, and that’s the point. It’s visible in Trump’s rhetoric and in official White House social media accounts, including dehumanizing memes about locking up and deporting immigrants set to Hollywood-style music. Last month, the White House launched a sci-fi-style website, aliens.gov, that seems to be about searching for extraterrestrial life and declares, “They walk among us,” but then reveals: “These ‘Aliens’ are the millions of ILLEGALS … Deport them all.”
McQuade reflects: “The effect is to chip away at our humanity. The cruelty comes from enjoying inflicting harm on others, which is just not how the United States has conducted itself in the world, at least since World War II.”
The chaos comes from what historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat calls “engineered incompetence.” Cabinet appointments are no longer based on merit, but on loyalty. McQuade points to the surreal reality of a vaccine denier, Robert Kennedy Jr., leading the Department of Health and Human Services, and Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host with no senior leadership experience, running the Pentagon during a time of war.
“If you put people in very high-level positions who don’t deserve to be there and wouldn’t be there under any other administration, they feel indebted to the leader who put them there. Even though no one ever has to say it out loud, they understand you got this job for one reason and one reason only. I think of the story former FBI director Jim Comey tells from the first administration: Trump invited him to dinner and said, ‘I expect loyalty.’ That’s not how this works.”
Trump uses both carrots and sticks to force compliance. When he pardoned Texas congressman Henry Cuellar, who was indicted on corruption and money laundering charges, Trump was later outraged to learn that Cuellar still planned to run for re-election as a Democrat. McQuade explains: “If I do something for you, you are now beholden to me. I control you. I own you.”
The sticks are just as insidious. McQuade details how Trump issued executive orders to punish elite law firms that had previously employed attorneys who investigated him, like Robert Mueller or Andrew Weissmann. These firms lost security clearances and access to federal courthouses. Most of these powerful firms gave in to the president’s demands, putting their business ahead of the rule of law.
“When an extortionist makes a demand, I’ve often seen people in my career make a payout and think, ‘There, now I’m done, it’s over, and I can get back to business as usual.’ But that’s not the case, because the bully always comes back for more—it’s the bully and your lunch money. It’s the extortionist and their prey. They know you’re an easy mark, so they’ll come back for more.”
“We’ve seen this play out with the law firms: they’ve been sidelined from challenging any of President Trump’s programs or executive orders. In some ways, Trump has bought silence from his toughest challengers and critics.”
That also applies to parts of the media. McQuade, who published Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America in 2024, highlights CBS settling a baseless “consumer fraud” lawsuit.Sued by Trump over routine editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. “A big part of it is that they care more about money than journalistic ethics. These big media companies are focused on mergers now. They need approval from the federal government, so they’re doing favors for President Trump, hoping to get favorable treatment.”
McQuade praises the Associated Press for refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, the Wall Street Journal for ignoring threats and publishing Trump’s birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein, and news organizations that declined to sign a Pentagon pledge to only report approved news. “When history is written, the heroes of this administration will be those who resisted and fought back,” she says.
If some parts of civil society are struggling, what about the courts? McQuade gives a mixed review. Lower court judges—no matter which president appointed them—have mostly held the line against the administration’s worst overreaches.
The Supreme Court, however, is a different story. McQuade doesn’t think the conservative justices are simply “in Trump’s pocket,” but she warns that their ideological support for the “unitary executive theory”—the idea that the president has total control over the executive branch—comes at a dangerous time. “As Justice [Ketanji Brown] Jackson has said, now is not the time to let the executive branch run wild. Now is the time to stand up for what we do in the courts.”
In a scene that feels like The Godfather Part II, Trump showed up at a Supreme Court hearing on birthright citizenship, staring at the justices and sending a message just by being there. McQuade recalls, “I’ve seen that in court cases where gang members or others from an organization sit in the courtroom and stare at witnesses as they testify, reminding them who’s in charge. It can be very intimidating.”
But the title of her book, The Fix, also has a more hopeful meaning. McQuade, who lives with her husband in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and has four children, lays out a plan for civic action. She cites research by Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth, who found that when just 3.5% of a population takes part in peaceful, sustained protest, they can bring down an authoritarian government.
McQuade points to the No Kings rallies as proof of this energizing force. Visiting a protest in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, she saw “Americana” in action: priests, teachers, students, and ordinary citizens holding signs. She also urges Americans to run for local office, work on campaigns, and join grassroots groups like the League of Women Voters to fight election misinformation.
Crucially, she believes the political opposition needs to rethink its strategy. Drawing on the recent success of Hungarian lawyer Péter Magyar in challenging the country’s illiberal leader Viktor Orbán, McQuade argues that U.S. politicians must stop retreating to their partisan bases and instead build alliances between progressives and rural populists.
“We need to get back to governing for the majority of people. Let’s focus on what we have in common—what we can do, what we can achieve. Let’s address affordability. Let’s tackle the housing crisis. Let’s talk about jobs. Let’s talk about how we’ll handle AI and climate change.”
She insists that the authoritarian “house of cards” will eventually collapse, as voters realize that Donald Corleone can’t deliver on its promises amid rising gas prices and foreign entanglements in Iran. “We have the power to fix what’s wrong with us,” she adds. “We the people have the power to take back our democracy. We have the power to run for office, to work on campaigns, to control our own destiny. What I hope is that people will read this book and feel inspired to do just that.””Stop that.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs about the comparison Trump is like Don Corleone every time he does someone a favor he expects something in return
BeginnerLevel Questions
1 What does it mean that Trump is like Don Corleone
It means people compare his style of doing business and politics to the fictional mafia boss from The Godfather The key similarity is that he rarely does favors or gives help without expecting a personal or political payoff later
2 Is this comparison literal Does Trump run a crime family
No its a metaphor Its not about actual crime Its about a transactional mindset favors are treated like debts that must be repaid with loyalty support or action
3 Why is Don Corleone used as the example
Don Corleone is famous for saying Ill make him an offer he cant refuse but also for his favor bank He built power by doing small kindnesses then calling them in when he needed votes muscle or loyalty Trumps supporters and critics see a similar pattern in his deals and endorsements
4 Can you give a simple example
Sure If a politician endorses Trump he expects them to defend him publicly and vote his way If a business partner gets a favorable deal Trump has been known to later ask for campaign donations or personal favors in return
Intermediate Questions
5 Is this behavior unusual for a politician or businessman
No transactional politics is common But the comparison sticks because Trump is seen as more explicit and aggressive about it He often says things like I did this for you now you owe me which sounds like a mafiastyle reminder
6 Does this comparison apply to his personal relationships too
Yes Former employees lawyers and even family members have described a dynamic where loyalty is expected in exchange for past support If someone crosses him he often brings up past favors he did for them
7 What are the potential benefits of this approach
Loyalty People are more likely to stay aligned if they know debts must be repaid
Efficiency It cuts through red tapeyou get what you need quickly but you pay later
