”When Someone Tells You Who They Are, Believe Them”

2020-04-28

People often talk about certain groups of immigrants that have come to America and wonder why some groups are so successful. One of the reasons is that it is a self-selecting population. To escape one’s country, whether it was fleeing Germany in the 1940s or Cambodia or Vietnam in the 1960s or Central America today, takes a remarkable degree of perseverance and courage. It’s often a high-wire act, that requires a do or die mentality. But it has a dark side. What happens when that same drive is carr...

People often talk about certain groups of immigrants that have come to America and wonder why some groups are so successful.

One of the reasons is that it is a self-selecting population. To escape one’s country, whether it was fleeing Germany in the 1940s or Cambodia or Vietnam in the 1960s or Central America today, takes a remarkable degree of perseverance and courage. It’s often a high-wire act, that requires a do or die mentality.

But it has a dark side. What happens when that same drive is carried too far? When bending the rules to survive becomes bending the rules to succeed. Then it's like that old adage that “behind every great fortune is sometimes a great crime.”

This certainly is true for the Trumps and the Kushners. And we all may be the victims. Andrea Bernstein tells this story in American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power.

My conversation with Andrea Bernstein:

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