How Goodfellas nails the romance of Donald Trump

Revisiting the mafia classic on the eve of the Trump presidency

Goodfellas perfectly captures the lifestyle of Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Entertainment Pictures / Alamy Stock Photo)

What does it mean to stand by Donald Trump? What does it feel like not just to live in his world, but to love it?

I don't know. I don't live there. But then, neither do millions of the Americans who voted for him. As I try to imagine what they want from his presidency — what it might look like, what Americans might imagine it looks like, when America gets great again — I keep coming back not to the election itself, but to the movies. Specifically, I keep coming back to Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas.

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Sarah Marshall's writings on gender, crime, and scandal have appeared in The Believer, The New Republic, Fusion, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015, among other publications. She tweets @remember_Sarah.