According to a June 9, 2016, USA Today story about Donald Trump’s business practices before becoming president, “At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments, and other government filings were from contractors claiming they got stiffed. … The actions in total paint a portrait of Trump’s sprawling organization frequently failing to pay small businesses and individuals, then sometimes tying them up in court and other negotiations for years.
In some cases, the Trump teams financially overpower and outlast much smaller opponents, draining their resources. Some just give up the fight, or settle for less; some have ended up in bankruptcy or out of business altogether.”
Four years later, in the race between Trump and Joe Biden, according to Yahoo Finance, 53% of business owners surveyed said they supported Trump.
Hope over evidence.
Which brings me to Mondo’s Ristorante Italiano, my favorite here in Tulsa. Owned by the Aloisio family, three brothers, Rob, Michael, and Chris, and their father, “Papa” Lou, it is a place where I not only eat three, four times a week, but have my own sandwich and my own booth.
While Chris is mostly apolitical when he’s not hating both parties equally, Rob, Mike, and “Papa” Lou are Trump supporters.
Unapologetically.
This, however, is not a piece about how we all need to get along and find common ground, though clearly the Aloisio Family and I have done that.
Sometime between 2016 and 2020, Rob put a “Trump” hat on a shelf over the bar, prompting a customer to trash Mondo’s on Facebook, saying that the hat’s presence, perched where it was, ruined her meal — and she was never coming back. In the thread that followed the post, my name came up, as my friendship with the family and my presence at Mondo’s is fairly well known in these parts. Rob, Chris, Michael, and “Papa” Lou were furious that the woman took her grievance public, which was understandable, but why, I asked, were they putting themselves in this position? People were coming to Mondo’s for pasta — not politics.
Chris agreed, then eventually Rob did, then the others, and a week later, the TRUMP hat came down and a Cleveland Browns’ hat was put in its place.
I have argued in this very space there is no real distinction between the casual Trump supporter and the one marching through town holding a tiki torch and screaming, “Jews will not replace us!”
All of their votes for him count the same.
Rob, Michael, Chris, and “Papa” Lou are not racists, cheats, misogynists or arrogant ignoramuses — this I know — but I also know they don’t, by virtue of their support for Trump, think such traits should disqualify him from being president. Once he beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, he was a winner, and they, like most Republicans — like most Democrats — like winners.
Trump gave (and gives) them 90% of what they want, what any Republican president would give them. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush from 2016; Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, and Nikki Haley, for that matter, in 2024 all take a pro-business stance, are all pro-guns, all would have appointed Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and would have promised to roll back regulations, give tax breaks to the rich, protect the unborn, and throw shade on DEI and Woke.
Rob has told me more than once that he wishes “Trump would shut the hell up,” but he has also posted he would take Trump and his “mean tweets” over high gas prices and inflation, as if those who have a problem with Trump list punctuation and his overuse of caps.
Trump has been to Tulsa twice since 2019 — once, at the height of COVID, as president, when he held a rally; once, after he lost, during an NCAA wrestling tournament. The Aloisio Family no doubt would have been honored had Trump or someone from his staff asked them to cater either event, figuring, as I’m sure other restaurants, plumbers, drapery salesmen, and those who install toilet dividers believed, they’d get a picture for the wall and he wouldn’t stiff them.
A year or so ago, the Aloisio Family recently spent millions to buy a building and open a new Mondo’s location.
The Aloisio Family have their lives in this business.
Donald Trump was convicted of falsifying business records and of conspiracy.
“Papa” Lou served in the Korean War; Rob stands for the national anthem when he hears it — even on television.
Donald Trump just gave the Medal of Freedom to Marion Adelson, a rich donor. Trump called the award “much better” than the military’s top award, the Medal of Honor, because those awarded the latter are, in his words, “… either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.”
The Aloisio Family hires teenage girls and women in their 20s as hosts and servers.
Donald Trump was found guilty of sexual abuse and bragged about how to grab women.
“All politics is local,” Thomas “Tip” O’Neill once said, filching from Finley Peter Dunne, but these days I’m not even sure it’s personal. Many women, minorities, the disabled, and those in the military will still support Trump. And on November 5th, at least three members of the Aloisio family will vote for a man they would never hire.
Barry Friedman is an essayist, political columnist, petroleum geology reporter — quit laughing — and comedian living in Tulsa, Okla. His latest books are “Jack Sh*t: Volume One: Voluptuous Bagels and other Concerns of Jack Friedman” and the follow-up, “Jack Sh*t, Volume 2: Wait For The Movie. It’s In Color,” which was released in June. In addition, he is the author of “Road Comic,” “Funny You Should Mention It,” “Four Days and a Year Later,” “The Joke Was On Me,” and a novel, “Jacob Fishman’s Marriages.” See barrysfriedman.com and friedmanoftheplains.com.
From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2024
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