We are now in the midst of some of the most blatantly corrupt and anti-democratic days that this country has ever seen.
That is what happens when the country elects a rich jackass like Donald Trump - a man with a long history of lies and shady deals - to it's highest office.
And yet, Trump won, at least in part, because he exploited this general knowledge that our whole political system is corrupt and rigged in favor of a few elites, as he claimed that his own wealth basically translated to him not being capable of being bought, or being corrupted by big money and powerful forces in Washington. In fact, he promised to fight all of this corruption, in his now famous "drain the swamp" sentiment.
Instead, of course, the swamp has been overflowing, as tons of reports of staggering corruption and/or various conflicts of interests regarding this President and members of his administration continually surface.
Here is just one example of reporting that the conflicts of interest currently in the White House are reaching levels of criminality perhaps never before seen in this country's history:
One such report found that since Trump secured the Republican nomination in 2016, the fraction of anonymous purchases of his properties through shell companies has "skyrocketed" from 4 to 70 percent. The public can only guess at the source of these funds, whether they be foreign governments or wealthy domestic interests—and to what extent unknown sums pouring into other Trump businesses are being used to curry favor with the president.
Surprised?
Yeah, neither am I. Again, this man has a well-known history of lying to promote his own self-interest. Time and time again, he did ridiculous, disgusting things to fatten his own wallet, and he said whatever he wanted to say beforehand to get his way, and more often than not, ignored these promises later on. As a candidate and then as President-elect, he demonstrably lied numerous times already. The story above, of course, hearkens back to when he promised to cut all of his business ties once in office, a promise that he obviously never meant to keep. He also promised to release his tax returns, which again, he clearly never meant to keep that promise. Although I was not a fan of Hillary, he claimed that Hillary was lying when she pointed out, quite accurately, that Trump had referred to climate change as a hoax, although he actually did say that in the past, and has expressed clear cynicism towards it since, as well. He claimed to know more about ISIS than his generals, which is clearly, laughably wrong. He claimed that he would be the greatest job creating President in history, and that he would bring America into a new era of greatness, when we would, in his words, start winning and continue to do so, until we would get tired of winning. What a joke that was! And who could forget that he promised to make Mexico pay for his wall, when anyone with an ounce of common sense knew full well that he would never, ever be able to do that.
And, of course, it seems a bit ridiculous for Trump to suggest that he could not be bought, when his entire business empire was based on making deals with special interests for things to get done. Yet, he filled his administration with corporate friendly people, and his administration has been filled with corporate friendly policies and nods to special interests. Until recently, none of these seemed to exert as complete influence as the NRA did over Trump and his administration:
The NRA is among the largest "dark money" organizations, reporting the greatest amount of campaign spending without revealing the source of the funds — over $35 million in the 2016 election cycle alone. Still, this amount was just a fraction of the over $175 million in reported campaign-related spending that came from unknown sources."
Yet, it should be noted that Trump has been worrying the NRA of late, with suggestions that run very counter to the NRA's traditional talking points, and strong emphasis on an unbending, unyielding interpretation of the second amendment that would place absolutely zero limitations on the rights of any citizens to obtain however many firearms, and however deadly the firearms, as they can afford, on the spot. Suddenly, Trump seems to be somewhat of an independent voice, at least on this one issue in particular. Still, action has not been taken on the NRA, and whatever Trump's seemingly constantly shape-shifting position on guns and the NRA (and other political beliefs, for that matter) seem to be at the moment, it is hard to imagine meaningful gun reforms occurring anytime soon, so long as Republicans control Congress.
I am not as certain about all of the enormous funds that allegedly systematically come from Russia, because my own suspicions are that many Trump detractors, and particularly mainstream Democrats who supported Hillary, are clinging to that as an excuse as a convenient explanation as to why they lost to Trump in 2016, when the real reasons why she lost were more compromising, and are damning to the Democratic party in general, and the mainstreamers in particular.
It is this that the authors of this CNBC article (see link below) miss, because there was a clear reason why voters in general did not either like or trust Hillary Clinton. After all, the hefty "speaking fees" that she collected, and the ringing endorsements that she received from numerous big banks and Wall Street firms suggested that she was very much a part of the problem, that she was, in a very real sense, bought and sold to the highest bidder. This perception had it that once elected, she would do whatever her corporate masters wanted her to do.
And really, this was not exactly hard to believe. After all, her endorsements did come from big banks and Wall Street firms, her policies were very corporate friendly, and her apparent disclosure to those same Wall Street corporations and banks that she was fine with having both a public and private position on issues, and that the two were not necessarily one and the same.
This was the kind of blatant corruption that people associated with the worst excesses of Washington in the modern day, and the normally advantageous notion of Hillary being seen as the most experienced was also taken as a negative, as she was also regarded, perhaps not entirely inaccurately, as the ultimate Washington insider running in the race.
Not coincidentally, it was the general lack of serious journalism on any major level covering all of this that added fuel to the fire of this perception of Hillary as corrupt and rotten to the core. And this particular article, which delves into matters of dark money and, presumably, to many corporate interests being involved in our politics, yet gets Hillary off scot-free, time and time again, that added to that sense that Hillary keeps getting special favors (and in return, gives them back to her corporate sponsors).
So, yes, this article makes some valid points about the obvious 'dark money' that is corrupting our political system. Indeed, to some degree, it is revealing. Yet, what is also revealed is the overly convenient narrative where Trump or Republicans, and perhaps Republicans as a party alone, are responsible for the ridiculous, out of control, disgusting corruption that Washington is completely plagued by, and which has eroded public trust in our elected officials. But if you dig a little deeper - and really, you only have to dig just a little bit - you will see that the complete omission of Democrats from stories like that actually adds quite a bit to the problems. So sure, go ahead and read the article that I attached the link to. But please keep in mind that it talks about corruption exclusively about one party, and even one man, while suggesting that corruption is poisoning American democracy as a whole, all while conveniently neglecting to mention the other of the two major parties, the one currently not in office, and how this overly convenient approach might itself be contributing quite strongly to the erosion of American democracy.
NRA, Russia and Trump: How 'dark money' is poisoning American democracy by Alex Tausanovitch and Diana Pilipenko of the Center for American Progress, 15 Feb 2018:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/15/nra-russia-and-trump-money-laundering-poisoning-us-democracy-commentary.html?__source=sharebar|facebook&par=sharebar
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