The Heel-Turn

 I was listening to the latest episode of the Rational Security podcast yesterday, and they devoted a segment to reporting that Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney and fixer turned critic, has now apparently changed his mind for a second time and become a Trump loyalist again. 

For those who missed the intervening change of heart, Cohen at one point renounced his friendship with Trump and said in effect that he regretted ever knowing him. Indeed, Cohen notably testified against Trump at his New York trial. 

For a brief period, then, Cohen emerged as an improbable "Resistance" icon, who even got a podcast deal and Substack following out of publicly opposing Trump. 

Now, it appears, Cohen has performed still another volte-face. It would seem this is becoming a pattern with him. He "turned his coat and would have turned his skin," as Byron wrote of Southey. "Fed, paid, and pampered by the very men / By whom his muse and morals had been mauled." 

As a character ironically observes of the same subject, in book by Thomas Love Peacock: "Thus, sir, I presume, it suits the particular views of a poet, at one time to take the part of the people against their oppressors, and at another, to take the part of the oppressors, against the people."

To which his interlocutor, Mr. MacLaurel, replies: 

Ye mun alloo, sir, that poetry is a sort of ware or commodity, that is brought into the public market wi' a' other descreptions of merchandise, an' that a mon is pairfectly justified in getting the best price he can for his article. Noo, there are three reasons for taking the part o' the people; the first is, when general leeberty an' public happiness are conformable to your ain parteecular feelings o' the moral an' poleetical fetness o' things: the second is, when they happen to be, as it were, in a state of exceetabeelity, an' ye think ye can get a gude price for your commodity, by flingin' in a leetle seasoning o' pheelanthropy an' republican speerit; the third is, when ye think ye can bully the menestry into gieing ye a place or a pansion to hau'd your din, an' in that case, ye point an attack against them within the pale o' the law; an' if they tak nae heed o' ye, ye open a stronger fire; an' the less heed they tak, the mair ye bawl; an' the mair factious ye grow, always within the pale o' the law, till they send a plenipotentiary to treat wi' ye for yoursel, an' then the mair popular ye happen to be, the better price ye fetch. (See Peacock's Headlong Hall.)

So too, it would appear that Mr. Cohen regards his political views as "a sort of ware or commodity" to be put on the market for the highest bidder. 

As to what motivated him, in his previous incarnation, to briefly take the part of "the people" against Donald Trump, any one of Mr. MacLaurel's explanations could account for it. 

Back when Trump was on trial, the Resistance folks seemed perhaps to be "in a state of exceetabeelity," and any former Trump associate could "get a gude price" for turning on him and sprinkling a Substack or podcast appearance with "a leetle seasoning o' pheelanthropy." 

Now that Trump and the Republicans are back in power, however, Cohen seems to have calculated that he can find a way to profit by inking a deal with a MAGA-oriented media outlet. He got "a place or a pansion to hau'd his din," in short—a weekend radio show. 

Not a bad price to fetch.