Trump says his administration is the most transparent ever, which of course doesn’t make it so or true, but he’s got a point at least with one very significant aspect.
If there is a word that describes the second Trump administration, it’s brazen. While I certainly hold open the possibility that dark deeds are being done in secret, one thing that is remarkable is how open and obvious he is with his self-dealing.
David French goes through the litany of deeds in which Trump has, and continues, to engage, which in any other world would be damningly corrupt, ending in impeachment, prosecution or at minimum, denigration by his party and supporters. And yet, the MAGA faithful and Republicans in Congress don’t seem to be mildly miffed, no less outraged.
Trump’s defenders have a different — and telling — term for his misconduct. He’s not brazen, he’s “transparent.” In a CNN interview about Trump’s message to Pam Bondi directing her to prosecute Trump’s enemies, Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma said: “I think what we know is, President Trump is very open and transparent with the American people, and he speaks his mind. And that’s what his supporters love about him, and that’s what America loves about him.”
This raises a very real question. If both his support base and Congress shrugs, if not openly excuse or applaud, Trump’s corrupt acts, are they corrupt. Put aside whether he can be prosecuted for them, as that’s not even in the mix. But a president selling sneakers, bibles, crypto, guitars, watches and American military support? It was bad enough when Trump sold worthless NFTs of himself with a muscular superhero body instead of anything remotely resembling his obese stooped old man bod, but selling CZ, whom he claims he doesn’t even know who he is, a pardon?
The best (only?) answer his sycophants can come up with is to shout “Biden” whenever confronted with Trump’s corruption.
In May, Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, was even more explicit. When questioned about Trump’s crypto dealings during a news conference, Johnson said, “The reason many people refer to the Bidens as the Biden crime family is because they were doing all this stuff behind curtains.”
“They were trying to conceal it,” Johnson continued, “and they repeatedly lied about it. Whatever President Trump is doing is out in the open. They’re not trying to conceal anything.”
Whether or not Biden was complicit in his son’s actions, it in no way makes Trump’s actions any less corrupt. So they were both corrupt? How does that possibly help Trump? The answer is in there, that Trump isn’t hiding it but being open and flagrant in his corruption. “They’re not trying to conceal anything,” and apparently the corruption isn’t the problem as far as MAGA is concerned, but it’s the concealment. Why? Because that’s all they’ve got.
Whether it’s by instinct or intention, Trump seems to have stumbled onto two key truths about his partisan supporters: They are desperate to rationalize, excuse and justify anything that he does, and they do not know much of anything about the law.
In that circumstance, when Trump acts out, openly and proudly, they don’t just rally to his side because they believe him and admire him, although many do, but because they can’t quite believe that deeds done in the open can be just as corrupt as deeds done in secret.
And, indeed, that may be true. If you know about corrupt acts and choose not to condemn them, but rationalize them, have you not validated corruption? And if the MAGA faithful and their political hangers-on approve of corruption, tacitly or otherwise, is it still corruption?
In normal politics the cover-up works as a form of concession. Outside of the occasional anonymous donor, who covers up good deeds? If your conduct is legal and moral, then why conceal it? But denial and evasion send a clear, contrary message — even I know that what I’m accused of is serious. I don’t want people to know the truth.
Since Trump does it in public, how wrong can it be? Clearly, not wrong enough for the mass of MAGA supporters to condemn him for using his office to line his pockets, reward his supporters and punish his detractors. Some say this is because support for Trump is a cult of personality, such that no bad act is bad enough to affect those who drank the Kool-Aid. Maybe, but that fails to explain many in Congress who were there long before Trump and were once considered pretty smart people. Or maybe they’re willing to sell their souls like Little Marco to get the gig when the next election rolls around.
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“President Trump is very open and transparent with the American people, and he speaks his mind. And that’s what his supporters love about him, and that’s what America loves about him.” I’ve seen this logic used in comparing drug dealers and other criminals as being at least morally equivalent if not preferable to police and government officials committing crimes by deception, witness intimidation, perjury, conspiracy, etc. Actually, there’s considerable pragmatic sense to this. With a thief, for instance, would you rather know someone is a thief in order to know to avoid him/her and protect/position yourself or not know and thus be much more vulnerable? The way I see, the American public was so desperate and beside itself after years of Biden loopy senility, Hunter Biden machinations, FBI treason, unadmitted plutocracy, and such that Trump was acceptable. I’m not meaning to try to “justify” Trump’s actions, if that’s even possible, but to make sense of the situation.
Yes, it’s the context that explains it. Trump could not have won the election with just his “support base” of rabid fans. It took hundreds of thousands of independent voters. Basically, people holding their noses and casting for a simple-minded, arrogant, self-dealing, convicted criminal with delusions of grandeur, in the belief that he was still a better choice than the Democrat.
Augustus Caesar at his peak controlled 1/5 of the Roman economy. In today’s economy he was worth 4.6 trillion dollars. True, much of his wealth was inherited. But 4.6 trillion is a lot of money. Our Augustus, (Hail Caesar!}, self reports being very very rich. He too has a lot of money. But his wealth is measured in billions not trillions. So if he needs to sell some bibles, steak,a few pardons, so what? He’s got some catching up to do. It’s all in the open,so let’s get off his back with this, right? Like he told 60 Minutes last night in reference to Mamdami (who he called a communist), he is much better looking than the original Augustus. He has privileges that most of us don’t. So relax, everything is going to be alright.
Presidents don’t do things. Presidents tell other people to do things. Are any of the people actually doing the things described on the government payroll?
Yes, it’s all still corruption, but now it’s on overdrive. But PK, Biden and Obama and Clinton and Clinton and, and, the MAGAts I’m on speaking terms with inevitably say. Sure, these sort of corrupt acts have historical precursors, and ones a bit closer and more familiar than ancient Rome. I’m still salty about the nepotism, a perhaps more understandable form of open corruption but corruption nonetheless, JFK demonstrated with brother Bobby, for example. No matter the form it takes or when it happened, corruption is wrong.
The previous order was eroding those virtues no one cares about anymore, but at least they didn’t throw even lip service to the old ways out the window. There’s value in the mantras and dare I say platitudes even if not followed at current. Trump is a pure and malignant, vulgar perspectivist seeking to warp reality to his liking.
Even calling him or his admin transparent is a fucking joke. Release the Epstein files and let the Pentagon reporters back in, cowards. And stop using secret signal chats, and and and.