Maddow Blog | Trump's habitual Al Capone comparison rings different two years later

Two years ago, in an online statement that’s since been deleted, Donald Trump whined about his legal difficulties by complaining, “Never before has this happened to another President, and it is an absolute violation of my civil rights. ... I’ve been investigated by the Democrats more than Billy the Kid, Jesse James, and Al Capone, combined.”

At face value, it was obviously unfortunate to see the former president present himself to the public as some kind of victim, solely because a variety of prosecutors in multiple jurisdictions uncovered evidence of his alleged felonies.

But it was Trump’s comparison that stands out: The Republican apparently thought he’d benefit from being lumped in with a murderer, a notorious bank robber, and one of the most powerful organized crime figures in American history.

Two years later, he’s still at it. Business Insider highlighted some of the former president’s rhetoric at his rally in New Jersey over the weekend.

Seven days earlier, he told a Mar-a-Lago audience, “Once I got indicted, I said, ‘Holy s---, I just got indicted.’ Me, I got indicted. ... I got indicted like Alphonse and like all these people,” a reference to the notorious gangster.

In fact, Trump can’t seem to help himself. A month earlier, also at Mar-a-Lago, he said he became “well known for somebody that was indicted more that Alphonse Capone, the legendary Alphonse Capone.”

Late last year in Nevada, the Republican seemed to take pride in the fact that he had more indictments than Capone, practically bragging about the lengthy number of charges he’s facing.

He said something similar on Fox News a few weeks earlier: “I’ve often said, Al Capone, he was one of the greatest of all time, if you like criminals. He was a mob boss, the likes of which — ‘Scarface,’ they call him. And he got indicted once. I got indicted four times.”

At an Iowa rally in October, Trump also said, in reference to Capone, “He was seriously tough, right? ... He was only indicted one time; I’ve been indicted four times.”

(For the record, Capone was, in fact, indicted at least six times.)

When the former president first started pushing this line, the rhetoric appeared designed to make the Republican a more sympathetic figure: The public was apparently supposed to believe that Trump was being mistreated because mobsters had shorter rap sheets.

To my ear, it had the opposite effect: The rhetoric served as a reminder that Trump stands accused of being a prolific criminal, his not guilty pleas notwithstanding.

But in recent months, the message behind the comparison appears to have evolved.

Samuel Earle recently argued in a New York Times opinion piece, “Mr. Trump’s eagerness to invoke Capone reflects an important shift in the image he wants to project to the world. In 2016, Mr. Trump played the reality TV star and businessman who would shake up politics, shock and entertain. In 2020, Mr. Trump was the strongman, desperately trying to hold on to power by whatever means possible. In 2024, Mr. Trump is in his third act: the American gangster, heir to Al Capone — besieged by the authorities, charged with countless egregious felonies but surviving and thriving nonetheless, with an air of macho invincibility.”

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com