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| Joe Buck played by John Voight, Hoffman as Rico "Ratso" Rizo |
By Hal Brown
By now everyone should now that RICO stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations.
Cinema fans probably remember the character played by Dustin Hofman in 1969's best picture Oscar winning Midnight Cowboy as Ratso Rizzo. I was going to write that Trump's new name should be Ratso RICO Trump, but then when I checked Wikipedia I saw that his real name was Rico Rizzo and Ratso was his nickname.
Of course in the book and movie Ratso was a complex character and a torutured soul. Trump is only complex from a psychiatric perspective but you can't say he's a tortured soul because he has no soul by any defintion of the word.
Perhaps ironically Joe Buck was played by John Voight who has been a vocal supporter of Donad Trump (link).
Hoffman is a staunch liberal who has offered his financial support to a long list of Democratic presidential hopefuls, from Joe Biden's run in 2020 all the way back to former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey's 1992 bid (Reference)
Those who read the book or saw the movie remember the powerful and tragic ending. The pair are on a bus enroute to make a new life in Florida. Ratso tells Joe he doesn't want to be called Ratso anymore. He askes to be called Rico. Rico's heatlh had been deteriorating and he dies on the bus never making it to Florida.
This is the last nine minutes of the movie:
I don't need to spell what the midnight ride to Mar-a-Lago would symbolize for RICO "Ratso" Trump. Unlike Rico, he isn't literally terminally ill. However his days as the self-crowned king of the world may be numbered.
