Dead Souls: Donald Trump and Yevgeny Prigozhin plot their survival
Is there no end to the greed and duplicity of Donald Trump? The answer is, of course, no. The former president has corruption imprinted down the length of his spine like the name of the town in Blackpool rock. There is no good side to Trump just as there is no good side to Yevgeny Prigozhin. Like the bull-like leader of the Wagner mercenaries who last week came within a whisker of toppling Vladimir Putin, he lacks all redeeming features.
Where Prigozhin ordered a march on Moscow aimed at removing the country’s military establishment and, in all probability, Putin himself, Trump, in January 2021, instructed his supporters to march on the Capitol in Washington to overturn the result of the recently held US general election, which he lost to Joe Biden, and reinstall him as president.
Neither man achieved his objective. Both pulled back at the last moment. But whereas Prigozhin, whose self-belief crumbled somewhere on the road out of Rostov-on-Don, has been nominally exiled to Belarus to lick his wounds and await his fate, Trump remains free and has every prospect of fighting his way back to the White House.
There is no need here to recount the details of Prigozhin’s rise to power. A convicted criminal and murderer who once ran a restaurant in Saint Petersburg catering almost exclusively to Putin and his oligarch friends and their guests, he ended up running a private army made up mostly of criminals like himself released from prison on the understanding that they would follow him to the death.
It is not a pretty tale, like something out of Gogol. But it would have been understood in almost any period in Russian history. The story of Donald Trump, by contrast, is unique. His villainy stands out by way of its brazenness and utter contempt for democracy, as if Harry Lime had escaped the sewers of Vienna to run for president. Prigozhin at least wore an army helmet and body armour; Trump – who once boasted that he could shoot a man in fifth Avenue and not be arrested – preferred his MAGA hat and a tie that reached almost to his knees.
Earlier this month, the New York Times published an investigation into Trump’s involvement in a multi-billion-dollar real estate deal in the oil-rich Gulf state of Oman. His key partners are the Sultan of Oman and Dal Ar Arkan, a Saudi-based development corporation which through its London subsidiary, DarGlobal, undertakes “to scout the most prestigious and attractive locations, providing lucrative investment opportunities for a distinct clientele”.
The Sultan and Dal Ar Arkan are putting up billions to develop a resort – previously a fishing village – some miles outside the Omani capital, Muscat. Ocean-view villas costing upwards of $13 million are planned, overlooking a marina, with exclusive shops and restaurants and, crucially, a five-star-plus hotel and golf course controlled by – who else? – the 45th president of the United States.
Trump, needless to say, will not be fronting more than a token amount of the cash needed to get the future resort up and running. But, operating mainly through his son-in-law Jared Kushner, he has lent his name to the project in return for a handsome share of the profits over the next 30 years. He – or more likely his family – stands to make a very considerable fortune from what is clearly a sweet deal.
It should be stressed that nothing illegal has transpired. The Sultan is happy, the Saudis are happy and Trump is laughing all the way to the bank. But there is still a whiff of sleaze in the air.
According to the White House’s own telephone records, quoted by the NYT, Trump “reached out” to the new Sultan, Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, in 2020, while he was still president, to praise “the success of the first eight months” of his rule and to discuss ways to “strengthen the Oman-US bilateral economic partnership.” Trump had remained close to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud even after the state-sponsored murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi journalist, based in Washington, in 2018. Trump and the Crown Prince quickly became “good friends”. Now, with a Saudi partner in prospect, he was setting himself up to do business in Oman as well.
With various legal actions pending – most notably the charge that he removed highly-classified documents when he left the White House and then refused to give them back – it might be supposed that Trump wouldn’t be able to spare the time to develop a golf course in the Persian Gulf. But the point is, he doesn’t have to. For the one-time host of The Apprentice is all about franchising. Once he has met with his “marks” and persuaded them that his name is all they need, his role becomes that of figurehead, albeit with the promise of riches to follow. The Trump Organisation, rooted in failed casinos and shady property deals, will do the hard work, leaving the man himself to concentrate on winning back his swivel-chair in the Oval Office.
More than 500 pro-Trump protesters have so far been jailed for their part in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Hundreds more cases remain to be heard. But for now at least, the man whose foghorn-like siren call led to their arrest continues to hold court at his Mar-a-Lago bunker.
In Russia, the Wagner rank and file, deserted by their leader, have similarly been left to face the music alone. Their choice is likely to be to abscond or else to go back into the meat-grinder of Ukraine, their only hope being that a differently led coup, originating inside the Kremlin, leads to a different outcome.
Trump and Prigozhin: one born into wealth and privilege, the other raised by a single mother, each of them narcissistic and ruthless to the core. Both, as it happens, spent time in the casino business, though the Russian with greater success. Both demand total loyalty from those they employ, but give none in return. In exile, Prigozhin might yet survive. He knows the score, and should he make it out alive he will harbour a dangerous life-long grudge against the man to whom he once owed everything. But of the two, Trump is the more likely to die of old age, whether in prison or in the White House history has yet to record. Their oddly parallel lives, like a chapter out of the destroyed second volume of Dead Souls, are a parable for our times.
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