This Single Episode from “The Sopranos” Breaks Down Donald Trump’s Real Dysfunction
By: John Blesso
Tags: The Sopranos, Mitch Mcconnell, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Narcissism

And it’s so much simpler than Narcissistic Personality Disorder…

In Season Two of The Sopranos, Tony forces David Scatino — an old high-school friend who has racked up a gambling debt with him — to “bust out” his camping store, ordering merchandise and wringing credit out of the business to the point of wrecking both it and his credit to settle his debt, and — of course — remain alive. In the wake of Trump’s pardon of extra-super-guilty Michael Flynn, I found myself comparing Tony Soprano’s bust out of The Ramsey Outdoor Store (where I coincidentally purchased all of my Boy Scout camping equipment) to what the supremely self-interested Trump might do with his remaining power as a lame duck.

A major difference between Trump and Tony Soprano, however, is that the iconic mob boss, despite his machinations, forever remains a sympathetic character. Perhaps nothing drives the gripping power of The Sopranos more than the show’s ability to make us empathize not just with a violent and selfish antihero, but some other truly atrocious characters. And so it goes with David Scatino, portrayed by Robert Patrick (best known for bringing to “life” the most unsympathetic and relentless liquid-metal cyborg in Terminator 2). Scatino is one of those guys whose life peaks at eighteen — an attractive star athlete who mistakenly banks on riding out his effortless social berth into adult success; he instead becomes a gambling addict who ultimately blows through the college fund for his Ivy League-caliber son. While that might feel like rock-bottom territory to you or me, Scatino decides to keep digging. And so he begs Tony to let him into his “Executive” poker game, foolishly chasing his losses. Tony warns his old friend away from the high-stakes game. But Scatino shows up anyway and Tony reluctantly fronts him five grand.

A long night then culminates with a gobsmacked Scatino, blinded by the light of the new day, forty-five large in the hole. With no more digging to be done, we then find Scatino kneeling on a pool table, pointing a gun alternately at his head and in his mouth. While he recovers from his suicidal ideation, his wife leaves him and his son is left to figure out college on his own.

After re-watching “The Bust Out,” however, my comparison of Trump to Tony Soprano felt less relevant and I began to see how the faux billionaire — who ran businesses into the ground and now owes $400 million (that we know of) to a murky set of entities — has much more in common with gambling addict David Scatino. Like Trump, Scatino never earned what he lost, having married into The Ramsey Outdoor Store, built by his father-in-law, only to then make one disastrous decision after another. Even though Trump is not a technical gambler (that we know of) his behavior neatly conforms with that of a gambling addict, starting with their first priority: Always keep yourself in the action. Both Trump and Scatino’s lives become downward spirals where the name of the game becomes chasing (and obscuring) mounting losses, deluding everyone around you that you’re still riding high, and deluding yourself that the bill isn’t going to come due.

But just as the sun rose that morning on David Scatino, bills come due. And is anyone better at collecting what they are owed than gangsters?

We may never know the extent to which Trump is indebted to Vladimir Putin’s vast syndicate, or to whom else he is on the hook. As such, Tony Soprano is not the only gangster to have sized up David Scatino; the heartless and vicious Richie Aprile preyed upon him first, and Richie is also determined to collect. Similarly, candidate Trump — back when he was crashing the gates for the Republican nomination — was sized up by the wily Mitch McConnell, himself a gangster of the highest order. If Henry Kissinger was correct that “power is the ultimate aphrodisiac,” (which may be true if your life is an emotional void) it seems apparent that wielding sadistic control in the Senate, and employing base hypocrisy to wrench our Judicial Branch ever further to the right of majority American values, is what truly raises McConnell’s flag full staff.

Tony (James Gandolfini) confronting David Scatino (Robert Patrick) after his long night.

(For right-wing malcontents, especially those determined to wreck American institutions, McConnell provides late-bloomer inspiration: Your last chapter of life is not too late to hit your sociopathic stride.)

Both Putin and McConnell publicly live out their amorality for all to see, concerned only with amassing raw power. In fact, both men seem to take additional pleasure in its naked exercise, donning their own weak rationales and defenses the way a stripper dons pasties. And both men found in Trump a “useful idiot” to further their respective anti-American agendas.

And then, woefully, the abused and ransacked Ramsey Outdoor Store is us. With Trump, everything is for sale. From trade carve-outs, to extraction contracts, to presidential pardons — just name your price. Hopefully, we can limit the extent to which Trump (and the infestation of grifters that has sprouted across D.C. like spongiform) will attempt to treat what remains of his tenure like a going-out-of-business sale as we wait for a new tenant to step in and pick up the pieces.

During a softer moment, David Scatino asks Tony why he finally let him in the game.

“Because,” Tony said. “I knew you had this business.”

When marks like Trump and Scatino find themselves indebted to gangsters, their debt is rarely settled at a specific number; rather their debt is settled when they are no longer useful. For when Scatino asks Tony when the bust out will be over, Tony plainly informs him that it will end when Scatino declares bankruptcy.

How will gambling addict Trump service his debt once he’s denied access to the awesome power of the presidency? Once he can no longer compromise our national security for his own advantage? Frankly I don’t give a fuck. I’m just relieved that so much of Trump’s time and energy is spent conning his supporters, coming at them every day, cup in hand, begging for their help to reverse a “stolen” election, the fine-print plainly revealing how their contribution will go into a PAC, which basically means his pocket. Which has further sported a gaping hole since about 1974. To paraphrase Taylor Swift, “Grifters gonna grift,” and I’m just glad that Trump’s grift is now targeting his cult, instead of our national coffers.

A few episodes later, Tony and Scatino cross paths at their kids’ high-school graduation. With the bust out behind them, their exchange is friendly and Scatino tells Tony that he is moving to Nevada to work on a ranch. Tony wonders about Scatino’s proximity to Vegas, and perhaps with good reason, for we later learn that Scatino has ended up in a mental institution. Meanwhile Trump, and the towering scope of his denial, is increasingly calling forth Blanche duBois at the end of A Streetcar Named Desire. I doubt there will be orderlies, but perhaps the Secret Service will walk in to the Oval Office and say, “Yes, Mr. President, right this way. Yes, we are taking you down to Mar-a-Lago. Watch your step. Yes, Sir, there will be a military parade in your honor and Vlad and Kim will be there and everyone will have chocolate cake.”

More likely, Trump’s insane asylum will take the form of a corner office at One America News Network, or Newsmax. Once he does, I’ll have an easier time having compassion for a guy whose monstrous father raised him to live a life isolated by his own self-interest — a round, padded room where everyone is disposable, being of service to others is for “suckers and losers,” and true human connection can never exist. That’s an insane way to move through life and for four years Donald Trump managed to trap and drag the rest of us into the gilded confines of his own lunacy. And it is with gratitude that I anticipate our release into the dawn of a new day.

Luckily for Scatino’s son, his big-hearted uncle steps up and pays for his tuition at Montclair State University. (In yet another real-life collision, Montclair State is my mother’s alma mater.) And if Montclair State isn’t Columbia or Princeton — which is to say a place that primarily confers shoulder-rubbing advantage on its graduates — it is still one of the best schools in New Jersey, and perfectly capable of equipping Scatino’s go-getter son with the tools needed to make something of himself.

Basically, Montclair State is Joe Biden.

For if we commit to working hard with our new middle manager — despite our loss of multilateral respectability and position of global leadership — we can hopefully recover and move forward. There’s reason to be optimistic that our true friends will extend a hand in forgiveness for what we have wrought upon ourselves and our international family. In the meantime, I’m just relieved that Putin and McConnell’s bust out of the presidency is almost over.