Some of my more attentive readers may have noticed that in the last couple of years I’ve been reading and reviewing quite a few books that deal with how our country got into its current political mess, about how the people of the United States became so divided and distrustful of each other. The return of Donald Trump to a second term as President has only confirmed in me the idea that our experiment in democracy and a multi-racial, multi-cultural society has taken a wrong turn somewhere. In the United States today it just seems to me that the credo of ‘Every man for himself’ is dominant and that money, as much and as quickly as possible, is the only measure of success.
‘The Longest Con’ by journalist Joe Conason is another such book and in many ways the worst. I don’t mean that the book is bad, far from it. No, what I mean is that ‘The Longest Con’ details some of the worst kinds of human behavior that have been committed over the last eighty or so years, all in the name of good, wholesome, conservative American values. ‘The Longest Con’ is the story of ‘How Grifters, Swindlers and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism’ to quote the book’s subtitle.
The author Mr. Conason begins by first describing what could be termed the ‘type specimen’ of the kind of fake ‘ultra-American’ fraudster that he claims has taken over conservatism and the Republican party, Roy Cohn. Cohn is best known as the lawyer who worked with Senator Joseph McCarthy to discover hidden communists inside the US State Department. Publicly Cohn portrayed himself as a patriotic American trying to protect his country from ‘red infiltrators’. In reality however Cohn and McCarthy never succeeded in finding a single communist. They just used false accusations, hate mongering and scare-tactics to ruin the reputations of a lot of decent people, both in and out of government, all while lining their own pockets at taxpayer’s expense.
After McCarthy’s downfall Cohn returned to private practice in New York where he continued his heavy handed methods of always attacking, using any kind of dirt against opponents, even if it wasn’t true, all while claiming he was the one being treated unfairly. Towards the end of his life Cohn would become a mentor in bad behavior to a young Donald Trump, who has surpassed his teacher in climbing to the top by whatever means was necessary.
One other facet of Cohn’s life is worth mentioning because it is a trait that many other frauds within the conservative movement have also been guilty of. One of the most vicious attacks that Cohn used against his enemies was to accuse them of sexual depravity, especially homosexuality. The irony is that it was Cohn himself who was gay. Following in Cohn’s lead since then many other conservative rabble-rousers have charged liberals with sexual misconduct only to be later revealed as the true perverts.
‘The Longest Con’ then goes on to detail the many, many scams and frauds that have been perpetrated by right wing organizations whether they be political, like the John Birch Society or Evangelical Christian such as the Praise The Lord TV network. The list of individuals and groups who have swindled the American public in the name of conservatism is almost endless. ‘The Longest Con’ covers them all right up to the recent ‘Tea Party’ movement and of course our Fraudster in Chief Donald Trump.
Throughout ‘The Longest Con’ the techniques that the fraudsters use are described at length. Mostly the swindler sets up a fake charity, so that they can claim tax-exempt status. Then solicitations are sent out to conservatives around the country, either by mail or on the TV or nowadays through the Internet. So far it sounds just like any charity doesn’t it, but what happens then is that nearly all of the money taken in goes to salaries or expenses for the fraudster and their friends and family. Whatever money remains then goes for further fundraising while next to nothing goes to any actual charitable work.
The worst part is that since these cons claim to be charities, law enforcement is often reluctant to investigate, let alone prosecute them. Even when the fraud is revealed the perpetrator(s) are generally only sentenced to a small fine and are soon free to start yet another con job.
By the end of ‘The Longest Con’ the endless list of grifts and swindles actually becomes depressing, it’s becomes hard to imagine that so many people could be so corrupt. That’s one problem with ‘The Longest Con’ although I suppose it’s unfair to blame Mr. Conason for all of the con men we have in this country.
Another problem is that quite often Mr. Conason becomes a bit too polemic in his descriptions of the bad guys, often referring to them as “ostentatiously pious” or describing their actions as “deep fakery” for example. The use of such invective may be warranted but still it takes away from the objectivity in ‘The Longest Con’. So I do recommend ‘The Longest Con’, our country has gotten itself in a sorry state and Mr. Conason does a very good job of describing how we got here, and the sort of people who are pushing us ever further into the gutter.