‘Fear and respect’: Roger Marshall channels the Godfather threatening Trump’s enemies | Opinion

A piece of advice for Kansas politicians: Never, ever, use Vito Corleone as your rhetorical role model.

Unfortunately, it’s too late for Sen. Roger Marshall to apply that guidance. The Republican went on Maria Bartiromo’s Fox News Sunday morning show — a day after headlining the New York Republican Club’s annual gala with former president Donald Trump — mostly to complain about President Joe Biden’s handling of border security.

“That’s why we’re fighting with Joe Biden saying no money for Ukraine until we fix the border,” he told Bartiromo. “It’s the border, the border the border, we have to secure the border.”

Fair enough. At the end of the interview, though, Bartiromo pivoted to Trump’s odds of winning the GOP presidential nomination — they’re pretty high — and asked Marshall to opine.

The senator obliged, sounding like a character from a mobster movie.

“He’s going to be the president of national security. He’s going to secure the border. He’s going to make the economy strong,” Marshall said. “His enemies will fear us and respect us.”

Modeling Marlon Brando’s mobster character

His enemies will “fear and respect us.”

Meaning: Trump’s enemies.

Which (as Trump never tires of reminding us) comprises a fairly lengthy list of folks: Democrats, journalists, prosecutors, his own former cabinet members, former GOP stalwarts like Liz Cheney and pretty much anybody who has ever said no to the man.

The obvious reference point for Marshall’s comments, of course, is Marlon Brando glowering through the opening scene of “The Godfather,” quietly boasting of the violence he could perform on behalf of his friends.

“If by some chance an honest man like yourself made enemies they would become my enemies,” Brando-as-Corleone mumbles to a cowering mortician. “And then, they would fear you.”

If there was a “who wore it better?” award for villainous speeches, Brando would obviously take the cake. But the menace of Marshall’s words is clear enough.

His comment, after all, came on the heels of that New York dinner, where Trump “joked” about being a dictator just on “Day 1” of his presidency, should he return to the White House. (Such jokes aren’t funny, not when you’ve already inspired an insurrection to overturn a free and fair election.)

Trump made clear that his second White House term would be all about taking revenge on all those enemies he feels have wronged him — especially the people who have pursued his criminal prosecution in four separate cases.

Trump blames Biden for that state of affairs. “I can only say to Joe: Be very careful what you wish for, but you have done a terrible thing,” he told the New York Republicans.

Dark stuff.

Threat repeated in official Senate press release

Marshall tried to use his Bartiromo interview to make Trump’s gala words seem somehow less threatening, relaying some advice he heard from Newt Gingrich.

“He said, ‘Look, Donald Trump’s going to be a third Andrew Jackson, a third Teddy Roosevelt, and a third Barnum & Bailey,’” Marshall said. “So President Trump spends a lot of time just shining a flashlight and letting that left national media chase the flashlight a lot. A lot. So I wouldn’t overreact to every word he says.”

It would be easier to take that advice seriously if Marshall hadn’t then directly proceeded — proudly, happily — to the assertion that Trump’s enemies “will fear us and respect us.”

You don’t soften a threat by making a new threat. But that’s exactly what Marshall did. He even repeated the words in an official press release from his Senate office.

So some additional advice to Marshall: “Fear” and “respect” aren’t the same thing.

Should those of us in the non-MAGA universe be afraid of a second Trump presidency? Maybe.

Respect it? Absolutely not.

The lesson of Veto Corleone is that a thug in a tuxedo is still just a thug. And an authoritarian is still an authoritarian, even — especially — if he sits in the Oval Office.

Joel Mathis is a regular opinion correspondent for The Kansas City Star and The Wichita Eagle. He lives in Lawrence with his wife and son. Formerly a writer and editor at Kansas newspapers, he served nine years as a syndicated columnist.