Barbara McQuade’s “The Fix”: A Mob-Style Portrait of the Trump Presidency

Barbara McQuade’s 2026 book *The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government* argues President Donald Trump governs through quid-pro-quo favors and loyalty, using extortion that mirrors the tactics of fictional mob boss Vito Corleone. She frames the administration’s actions as an erosion of democratic norms, organized into a three-part model—corruption, cruelty, chaos—to explain power consolidation and dissent suppression.

The Guardian

McQuade, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan (2010-2017), prosecuted the Detroit mayor’s corruption case and the “underwear bomber.” She later authored *Attack from Within* (2024) on disinformation and notes that Trump learned extortion tactics from his 1970s lawyer Roy Cohn. Her prosecutorial experience informs the book’s focus on legal intimidation, including executive orders that penalize law firms representing investigators such as Robert Mueller.

The Guardian

McQuade’s three Cs are corruption—pardons for January 6 rioters, a $400 million Qatar-funded plane, and alleged emoluments violations; cruelty—dehumanizing rhetoric that calls undocumented migrants “aliens” and a White House page equating them with extraterrestrials; chaos—“engineered incompetence” shown by appointing a vaccine-denier to head the Department of Health and Human Services and a former Fox News host to run the Pentagon.

The Guardian

McQuade observes that lower-court judges have largely resisted executive overreach, while the Supreme Court’s unitary-executive stance raises concerns. She cites media firms compromising standards for profit, such as CBS’s settlement of a Trump-filed consumer-fraud suit, and notes law firms that defended investigators lost security clearances, curbing challenges to presidential actions.

The Guardian

McQuade says Trump’s loyalty-based staffing creates an extortion feedback loop, noting that “people will make a payout and think they are done, but the bully always comes back for more.” She cites Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s warning that courts must act now to restrain unchecked executive power.

The Guardian

• “He uses his power to try to control others, especially would-be critics,” — Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney

The Guardian

• “The corruption is ostentatious.” — Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney

The Guardian

• “The cruelty is performative and is the point.” — Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney

The Guardian

• “As Justice [Ketanji Brown] Jackson has said, now is not the time to allow the executive to kind of run wild. Now is the time to stand up for what we do here in courts.” — Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

The Guardian

The book ends with a plan urging sustained non-violent protest, local candidacies, and cross-ideological coalitions on housing, jobs, AI, and climate change. McQuade cites research that as little as 3.5 % voter participation can destabilize authoritarian rule, positioning grassroots mobilization as the primary means to “fix” the perceived mob-style system.

The Guardian