A Meeting in a Kushner-Owned Building in NY Today Woke Me Up
Suddenly, it seemed I was no longer in the United States but in Russia!
In the seediness of the ever-expanding cloud of cannabis that the East Village has become, there stands an oasis. It’s called the “Hotel on Rivington,” and despite its rather modest name and unimpressive lobby, according to the guy I was meeting, I said it had some of the best hotel rooms in New York.
“This is a Kushner building.”
I felt disgusted.
It turns out that the Kushners no longer own the four-star hotel. Jared and his brother Josh decided to buy in 2018, shortly after Jared became the advisor to his father-in-law and then 45th president of the United States. The Kushners flipped it in 2019, and some Wall Street investors developed it. After my meeting about Portuguese wine, I went for a stroll into the neighborhood. It seemed teeming with underemployed people (like myself) angling for dollars — “Yo, can you spare a dollar?” — high people and the homeless. There was also a lot of business activity. The “worst economy” in the world, according to Trump and his supporters, seemed to be running on all cylinders.
As my friend the other day, a natural gas salesman for the last 30 years and someone who has made a very good living — you might recall him from my Jack and Diane article, Kevin — is about to be ousted from his job because he costs too much (somehow this is Biden’s fault), He called Trump the “lesser of two evils.” As I looked at the bustling city, and I played out in my head how the next round of tax cuts along with massive tariffs would play out, I accepted that this might be one of the last times I stroll around the East Village. A dangerous enough place in normal times, when income inequality mixed with rising prices and unemployment started anew thanks to Trump’s pro-rich economy, the “oasis effect,” the haves versus the have-nots, thanks to that gleaming 20-story hotel could really push some of the street people into aggressive action.
America is an oligarchy. We have been on this path for decades thanks to Ronald Reagan’s nonsensical “morning in America,” and today, with the teeth of that Reagan era sunk deep into our necks, we are being hauled about the plains by the tiger as we slowly get bled out. Excuse the hyperbole, but when a president as criminally corrupt as Donald Trump breaks as many laws as he did and then gets re-elected as if he were some great savior coming to town on a white horse, then it’s okay to wonder out loud of this America still stands for “We the people.”
When Jared Kushner turned his position of power into a two-billion dollar investment by the Saudis he protected from prosecution for murder and now rolls guilt-free into a second windfall thanks to his father-in-law’s re-election, one has to ask if it might be time to put the Liberty Bell into the basement of Independence Hall and call it a day on American democracy.
Sitting in that lobby, letting the guy sample my wines, I couldn’t help but feel I was in Moscow. During my 28 years in Russia, I lived through all the phases of post-Soviet Russia. Phase One, from September 1991 to December 31st, was a party. Most Soviet citizens were glad the Soviet Union had collapsed. There was a sense that anything could happen, and most believed that the “anything” would be good.
From January 2nd, 1992, the day state price controls were ended and the beginning of Phase Two, until August 19th, 1998, Russians went a little crazy. Everyone was trying to build the next great business empire. Few wanted to work in their former State-assigned jobs, and everyone wanted to be a millionaire. During this phase, the wealthy capitalists staked out their corners in the formerly state-run economy. A handful of these young, smart, and ruthless men seized control of the state’s assets. When the economy collapsed on August 19th, 1998, tens of millions again lost everything they had.
Phase Three began on December 31st, 1999, when then-President Boris Yeltsin stepped down and handed the presidency to the little-known Vladimir Putin. It was the real Y2K only when it happened no one knew it. We were all looking for some big breakdown of the world’s computers, and instead, a rat-like serial killer took over Russia. Phase three was when Russia’s super-rich subordinated their interests and some of their wealth to Putin’s new Russia — the rich who chose not to follow Putin’s instructions ended up dead, in exile or prison. The Kremlin christened the oligarchy, and the bureaucracy, along with the police and the judiciary, became servants to the oligarchs. Putin was, and still is, the leader of this oligarchy. This is where we are today.
From the mid-2000s until Russia seized Crimea, an unprecedented period of calm prevailed in Russia. Don’t get me wrong, planes, trains, cars, people, and businesses were still getting blown up by unseen, nefarious forces, but the Russian middle class exploded onto the scene. More Russians were better off than ever in the country’s history. The key to happiness in Russia during those years, and even more so today, was to accept that Russia existed to cater to a small, wealthy elite. If everyone else remained calm and obedient, the fruit left over from the energy-rich banquet would eventually and consistently trickle down to the masses. In Russia’s biggest cities, it did trickle down.
Everyone in Russia knew that the police served not to protect their interests by the interests of the country’s CEO, Putin. The police, the military, the judiciary, and the bureaucrats would always protect Putin’s business interests and the interests of the knighted. If, perhaps, a non-aligned citizen opened a smashingly successful business, then that citizen would eventually be found guilty of some made-up offense, and he would have the option to either leave Russia with nothing, go to prison, or die. There are dozens of such government takeovers, and all Russians know of them. The businesses that get taken over are then transferred to the friends and family of Putin and the oligarchs.
As a nation, we have been through many phases of development. There were periods when business was stronger, and the people weren’t protected. Thanks to New Deal legislation and then Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty in the 1960s, the chasm between the upper classes and the middle and working classes was significantly reduced. Ronald Reagan, though, started the long journey to where we are today. His influence was not only on the economy but on things like education, the airwaves — he gutted the Fairness Doctrine — and most importantly, his black magic spell against government: “Government isn’t the solution to our problem, it is the problem.”
At no time before in our history are we more poised to become a full-blown oligarchy thanks to the rise of MAGA and the second Trump administration. As I sat in that former Kushner building, I had the same exact feelings I had when surviving Russia in the late 1990s. Off on the horizon, the business interests were coalescing. As they look out for America’s future, they realize that the pool of incompetent but Trump-loyal government officials will have no idea what’s right and wrong. They will have one goal: to ensure that the interests of Trump and his chosen oligarchs are protected and well-served. Like in Russia, today in the United States, if a citizen is politically opposed to Trump, then it is fair to assume that his commercial interests will suffer.
As I fought my way out of the city — yesterday was the first day of gridlock warnings because of the holiday season — I slipped through the Lincoln Tunnel. Down the road a bit, I stopped at the John Fenwick rest stop on the NJ Turnpike. Here, one can find a memorial to the Congressional Medal of Honor recipient John Basilone. Basilone grew up in nearby Raritan, New Jersey.
Sitting and drinking my coffee, I watched a small film about Basilone on the TV that hung on the wall near the food court. Two men wearing MAGA hats sat nearby and ate burgers. They were experiencing a joy I had not since November 4th. I gazed in their direction and then back up at the American hero Basilone. I couldn’t understand how they could love a man who would consider John Basilone, who was killed in action years after receiving his Medal of Honor, a loser.
I looked at Basilone and thought of the millions who had died to preserve our democracy. Then, I looked back at the two misshapen cowards with their stupid hats and overgrown Giant’s jerseys on. In all of the glory of their stupidity and ignorance, they gave away all we worked so hard to achieve to an orange, rapist, Russian agent.
I wanted to walk over and knock those hats off their heads but drove away in silence instead.