I had reservations about seeing this film because, generally, I go to the cinema for escapism. To be completely immersed in a temporary world. With this documentary, however, I was fully aware of the subject, his mark on the history of this country, and what his tactics reveal about my country’s politically oppressive present and a dystopian future that seems more and more real each day. Roy Cohn is the man Donald Trump wishes Jeff Sessions would have been to him, and who he hopes Attorney General William Barr could be. Cohn, and his insane flamboyance, is the through-line from McCarthyism to Trumpism, full stop. 

I thank the director and producers of this necessary expository documentary providing the public with a semi-complete accounting of:

• a devious anti-Semitic Jewish lawyer who concocted crimes against innocent American citizens by accusing them of Communism in the 1950s, 
• a closeted gay man who used his influence and political posture to accuse members of Congress and the American public of homosexuality, a punishable crime by law back then (and technically today), among other things…

Cohn is a name frequently referenced in today’s political media when describing President Trump’s frequent and uncorroborated accusations of crime he accuses of others that he himself commits. Specifically, the newest one regarding corruption in the Ukraine which is certainly going to get him impeached (and probably removed from office a year before re-election), is straight from the Cohn playbook. 

Lie. Deflect. Cheat. Settle. Destroy the evidence. Rinse. Repeat. 

Matt Gaetz, Republican Congressman representing Florida’s 1st district, is who I think of when I’m reminded of Cohn’s tactics. 

He oozed an insane level of hubris and admittedly was a person how lacked the empathy and compassion that non-malignant narcissists employ. He lied, he cheated, he probably committed murder, he got murderers off, he accused people of crimes against the united States, he was a self-hating, Anti-Semitic Jewish man, who tried to out homosexuals at a time when being gay and a federal government employee meant you could be jailed, and he himself was gay! Even when he appealed his disbarment from the New York Bar Association, he lied to a firm representing him which counted as another case in his disbarment.   

That fucker was ruthless. I mean, in a weird way I can see why his treachery was admired. The essence of his malignant narcissism reached the office in the land decades following his death. That’s powerful, and depressing.