How Trump Taught America to Tolerate Brazen Corruption
How Trump Taught America to Tolerate Brazen Corruption
Have you heard about the president who received money from China and other foreign countries? No, not the current president. The former one.
House Republicans recently launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, premised on the claim that he is hiding, in the words of Speaker Mike Johnson, “millions of dollars in payments from America’s foreign adversaries.” As yet, they have produced no evidence to back up the idea that Biden profited. (The payments they have flagged involve the business interests of his son Hunter Biden, who is facing two separate federal indictments at the moment, and his brother James.)
Meanwhile, House Democrats on Thursday released a report detailing how former President Donald Trump received, and then tried to hide, millions in payments from America’s foreign adversaries. Unlike in the impeachment inquiry, which is premised on a suspicion that Republicans hope will turn up evidence, the receipts are here.
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The saga of the foreign payments is a good case study in how Trump has taught Americans to tolerate brazen corruption—so long as it’s his. To do this, Trump relies on two tactics. First, he does much of it out in the open, recognizing that voters tend to assume that only hidden deeds are nefarious. Second, he finds ways to slow-walk the release of the most damaging information, so that by the time the full picture is clear, the public has become almost inoculated—as though it had been out in the open all along.
Going out on a limb here… we don’t tolerate it. There isn’t much stopping them though, esp with a stacked SCOTUS and GQP.
Naaah we tolerate it. Remember when Reagan sold arms to the country that held American hostages during his predecessor's term. You know the country he illegally colluded with to beat the incumbent president. Selling them weapons to circumvent a US embargo. To fund international terrorism like the contras in South America. And then when he and his VP were caught red handed. They passed it off to a patsy. Ollie North! The criminal president at his term limit retiring comfortably as Republican Messiah. The criminal VP going on to be president. Who then pardoned the former president and Ollie North of their crimes. And America collectively yawned. So much so that cartoons do a better job covering it than most history books people are exposed to.
America was already tolerating a ton of corruption, though, just much less brazen.
Basically, bribing a politicians is completely legal as long as you don't tell the world what you're bribing them to do.
Blackmailing them with threats of supporting their opponents if they don't say or do what you want is completely fine too, apparently.
The trick is to not be too blatant about it, brag about it, deny it and then brag about it some more like the Mango Mussolini does.
Yeah. Every single time there's an op-ed accusing Trump of inventing something, inevitably it's just something he exploited and dialed up to 11. The only people more confident of Trump's abilities than his supporters are his detractors.
Yeah. He's an especially malignant tumor, not the underlying cancer.
“It’S not bribEry It’S LObbyiNG!!“
Not much sane people can do. The people who could do something don't...or haven't so far.
Didn't. They /didn't/.
Its too late now.
Trump, nearly single handedly, normalized so much absolute insanity that we are now more on par with what we were taught to call Banana Republics for their economic systems that do not function well for the vast majority of people, unstable politics and unstable political and social institutions and norms, oh and domestic terrorism.
That shit takes /decades/ to recover from, on average, if you look at the works of academic political scientists (which are very different from politicians espousing ideologies or rhetoric or talking points).
This is not going to just all be nicely fixed in another Presidential term or two, us millenials will be dealing with this until we reach retirement age.
If we reach retirement age.
Climate Change aint slowing down amd thats gonna make everything even more dire.
we are now more on par with what we were taught to call Banana Republics for their economic systems that do not function well for the vast majority of people, unstable politics and unstable political and social institutions and norms, oh and domestic terrorism.
Now that's some irony! We call them "Banana Republics" because of how they were dominated and exploited by American fruit companies, with support from the US government, up to and including building private armies and calling in the CIA to do coup d'etats. The only thing new here is that the Republicans are normalizing doing the corruption to ourselves instead of just to others.
There's plenty sane people can do. They just don't because it's too hard to show up to the polls once or twice a year, apparently. Or too hard to vote pragmatically instead of idealistically.
You mean he taught the "liberal media" and the cons this. Normal people hate this brazen corruption and want to see it severely punished.
imagine getting it this backwards. The reason they tolerate trump's corruption is because most of congress is nearly as bad and any sort of digging would create a weapon that could be used against them.
This is not true. I'm not denying widespread corruption and in Congress (much of it even legal) , but Trump's corruption was more widespread and more brazenly public than any US politician in living memory.
Every single he went golfing at a golf course he owns and forced the secret service to rent out dozens of rooms at the attached hotel he owns, it was an act of corruption. He did it so many times that people just forget it. It slipped into the background of his other schemes. But it was nonetheless corruption every single time. He openly used the office to enrich himself. Not with deals, not by subtly having favourable classes added to legislation. He did it directly and openly.
there have been numerous rulings by SCOTUS going back before the 80s each making it harder to prosecute politicians for corruption, with citizens united being one of the largest barriers between corporations and state removed.
Realistically trump isn't some anomoly - He's just a donor class person entering in the building from the back door the politicians leave from. The fact that door exists between politicians and donors is the problem here. Trump just did it much more blatantly but its still the same problem that Manchin or whoever have where they favor their own companies with legislative carvouts or cushy appointments.
When there’s so much trash keeps piling up in your room with no idea which way is up or down anymore, your brain just kinda begins to accept it for what it is and goes with the flow.