r/AskReddit • u/DrCompenomics • 12h ago

Who’s the best real-life example of “you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” and what happened?

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242

u/Snickerdoodle321 10h ago

Rudy Giuliani. Many people don’t seem to realize how integral he was in taking down the mob. Before he became mayor of New York he oversaw the investigations and convictions of most of the heads of all major mafia families.

Fast forward a few decades and the man is nothing but a Trump lackey.

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u/KingDarius89 9h ago

It still baffles me on why he ruined his own legacy like that.

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u/blue_magi 9h ago

Kinda started long before that. Once he started milking 9/11 every chance he got, the writing was on the wall. The urge to grift was always there.

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u/MSully94 7h ago

Even the "America's Mayor" thing runs VERY thin when you realize how poorly he actually RAN the city post 9/11. He pushed to have ground zero declared safe, despite MANY agencies claiming it not, and a lot of first responders, and frankly just people who worked in the vicinity got cancer and died following it.

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u/sunnygovan 9h ago

He did that while accepting donations from the Brighton beach russians. He didn't smash the mafia for Joe Blogs, he removed competition.

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u/joe-h2o 7h ago

When you look at it through the lens of removing competition for the Russian mob, it makes more sense how he managed it so effectively.

He was bankrolled with cash and actionable intelligence by the Russian mafia.

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u/SmokingSlippers 8h ago

He did it to install the Russian mob.

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u/franklinchica22 7h ago

I see him as backing the head of one family to take the rest of them.

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u/THE_COOL_JAMES 7h ago

I'm guessing you weren't in nyc in the 90s... We did not like this man.

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u/MrRemoto 6h ago

In one sweep in 1985 he arrested 11 of the top leaders of the five families and charged them using RICO, which was an innovative use of the relatively new law at the time. Trying to tie a boss to an individual crime was next to impossible, so he charged the entire organization with multiple crimes as a "criminal enterprise". Dude was actually a pretty good prosecutor before drugs and alcohol took away his judgement.

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u/disisathrowaway 2h ago

He knocked out the Italians on behalf of the Russians.

All he did was change the management.

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u/randomtask 1h ago

Makes sense, the path between the Russian mob and Donald Trump is a straight line.