It all points to the fact that the whole Epstein affair would, if brought fully to light, have Trump found guilty under federal RICO (Racketeering Influences and Corrupt Organizations) statutes as an organized crime kingpin.

Yes, everything Trump represents smacks of the lowest of mob behaviors and m.o.’s, as it is fear and intimidation that are his calling card. It is not complicated or sophisticated. The mob in its various iterations since the days of Prohibition has operated as a criminal enterprise outside the law, and the law, in fact, was its enemy. Contempt for the law. That’s how it worked.

There are a lot of people in this land who secretly, or not so secretly, admire the lawlessness of the mob, who would emulate it if they thought they could. Heck, who wants to pay income tax, anyway, or be held accountable in any way for their actions? Isn’t this what freedom is all about? Isn’t this what makes us Americans?

I firmly contend that the mob that has insinuated itself into the White House and in control of a quaking Republican Party that is being cowed into going along because it shares enough of the kingpin’s values, can be defeated. But we need more than a modern-day Elliot Ness to pull it off.

Ness brought down Al Capone, as he chronicled in the famous “The Untouchables” book and TV series from the 1950s. He was as tough at Capone, no nonsense and totally focused on taking down the mobster, no question.

Today, sad to say, too much of the law enforcement establishment in this country is on the side of the lawbreaker. It is important to understand how this came to be, but it is of much greater urgency that it be brought to a halt.

Everything that Trump represents and calls for – his illegal termination of funding that was voted by Congress, his illegal firings, his call for illegal redistricting of Congressional districts, his illegal abuse of executive powers in a wide range of cases, and now coming to light, his history of wildly illegal trafficking of minors for sexual exploitation – is premised on a hatred of the law, any law really, that contradicts whatever he wants.

So, who are today’s Elliot Ness figures in our civic life? Beyond, that is, the leadership of the Democratic Party, which I believe are doing a good job, generally, of focusing on ways to bring a majority alliance together.

The Trump problem for America is not a political problem, primarily. It is a law enforcement problem. It must be up to law enforcement to stop this insanity. Congress makes the laws, but a lot of us are going to have to put on badges and do what all those so-called friends of the sheriff in “High Noon” failed so miserably to do.

That classic film from the early 1950s, after all, was not so much about Gary Cooper’s memorable character or Princess Grace’s role, but about the words of Frankie Laine’s haunting lyrics, “Do not forsake me, oh my darling,” that echoed through the entire movie. The movie was about a forsaking, not by the sheriff’s wife but by all the cowering citizens who would not help.

We cannot sit around while children are being gunned down, as happened in Uvalde, Texas, when 19 children and two adults were killed while law enforcement did nothing for 77 minutes. 

We cannot allow Trump and his gangsters to thumb their noses at the law to appease their lowest of desires. This is not what life is supposed to be about. Without law, nothing works.

Regulation, after all, is just another word for protection. Regulations are in place because they are designed to protect people from danger. Those who want to remove them for their own selfish self interests really don’t care who gets hurt as a result.

Now, many millions are being hurt by what Trump and his gang are doing. They are the lowest of the low and it’s time folk stepped up to take it on. It is our duty as human beings not to let this corrupt filth keep getting away with it.