Republicans Shrug at Trump’s Outrageous Corruption

In a normal political world before Donald Trump, you know, priests wouldn’t go around praying golden statues Many political leaders and presidents did not have their names and faces plastered on public buildings, passports, and currency as in the tin-pot dictatorship; lawmakers could agree on some basic parameters of decent behavior. Democrats and Republicans may fight on every issue, but they can unite in opposition to insults against their own interests.

This is no longer true. There appears to be nothing Donald Trump or his family can do that would lead to accusations from the GOP. This is especially evident after Trump’s push. revenge Tuesday’s primaries were contested by a handful of Republicans who at times expressed concern about the administration’s threats to the Constitution. I still remember when sucking was a disgusting character trait, but now it’s become a Republican art form.

In pre-Trump days, Republicans would laugh at Baghdad Bob-style third-world sycophancy. But this week, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry traveled to Greenland as Trump’s special envoy. “Greenland wasn’t on the map until Donald Trump “Put this on a map,” he said. gushed. Ick. I also remember a time when Louisiana’s governors, however badly behaved, were independent-minded and intelligent. Edwin Edwards on an enemy: “So slow it takes an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.”

While his ass-kissing behavior is shameful, the latest news out of Washington DC is shocking. Trump sued the IRS for $10 billion over leaked tax returns, and the agency he now runs resident With the President and his family. The terms of the deal surprisingly don’t tilt in Trump’s favor and should make anyone who advocates limited government blush, but you know that’s not the case.

Like ShipmentJonah Goldberg explained“Realizing that the courts might find this too sweet to take, the Justice Department and the IRS (both also run by Trump) compromised by creating a $1,776,000,000 fund (“1776″ before all the zeros is a play on the country’s 250th birthday) that Trump would control. The primary function of this fund would be to compensate the January 6 rioters, all of whom he had already pardoned.” Trump is not very smart, but he is cunning. (You thought it was in unions’ interest to negotiate wage agreements with the politicians they elect to office.)

Other details of this “anti-proliferation” agreement are more brazen. as BBC notedThe agreement “prevents the IRS from reviewing past tax returns by Trump, his family and his companies.” This amounts to a self-amnesty for any financial problems and, as others have noted, largely puts the Trump family above the nation’s tax laws. In free societies, no one is above the law, whereas in despotisms, the despot and his followers can do almost anything they want. As a Peruvian dictator once said, “For my friends everything is law, for my enemies it is law.”

So where are the Republican lawmakers? Some pretended not to know the details of this well-reported agreement. Others have expressed some concerns about Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), according to the Deseret News saying He said he’s “not a big fan” of a slush fund that could pay millions of dollars to people who attacked the Capitol and police officers. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says he wants to ask more questions. It won’t be long before all elected Republicans, including those currently voicing “concerns,” become big fans of the deal.

Already according to the news reportSen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) compares the Whataboutism thing to a deal made under the Biden administration; Ridiculously poor comparison. The case he mentioned involves $2 million The administration’s deal with former FBI officials, not with a president who “negotiated” for $1.8billion The slush fund that allowed him to get out of jail for his family.

One writer described Trump’s administration as follows: “patrimonialism” This means that he treats the United States and its government as his personal property. This certainly helps explain Trump’s disrespect for the White House and other monuments of D.C., as he imposes an early Saddam Hussein style on everything that is largely free of congressional oversight. But that’s an overly generous explanation.

The key to Trump’s success is throwing so much at the wall that it constantly leaves his opponents flat. Consider this ridiculous news that would be unbearable in this long-forgotten sane world. From New Republic: “At least two companies tied to Don Jr. and Eric Trump have won major government contracts.”

Why are Republicans coming back? “One of the saddest lessons of history is that if we have been deceived long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of deception.” wrote Carl Sagan. “It’s so painful to admit, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken over. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” And now the nation will probably never get back to normal because a spineless GOP can never admit it was ripped off.

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