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There’s More Than One Kind Of Corruption
When people think of corruption in high places, they tend to think of elites feathering their own nests. Bill and Hillary Clinton monetized political power into a personal fortune of hundreds of millions, and played the system better than any couple since Napoleon and Josephine. Paul Manafort is alleged to have sold his services to sketchy foreign powers (including a Putin puppet in Ukraine), pocketed multiple millions, evaded American taxes, and according to evidence presented in his trial, spent up to a million dollars on cashmere suits and ostrich jackets (being rich doesn’t mean having taste).
President Trump is defending his former campaign chairman: “Paul Manafort worked for Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and many other highly prominent and respected political leaders. He worked for me for a very short time. Why didn’t government tell me that he was under investigation. These old charges have nothing to do with Collusion – a Hoax!” The president might answer a few questions too. Why didn’t he do any background investigation of Manafort? His career representing tainted foreign leaders like Ferdinand Marcos and Jonas Savimbi was public knowledge. Allegations that he received off-the-books payments from overseas interests were also only a click away. In 2016, Manafort flatly denied the allegations: “The simplest answer is the truth: I am a campaign professional. . . .I have never received a single ‘off-the-books cash payment’ as falsely ‘reported’ by The New York Times, nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia.” That didn’t age well.
Another question for President Trump: Didn’t it strike him as odd that a man of Manafort’s tastes and lifestyle would agree to work for Trump (supposedly a billionaire) for free? Didn’t he pause and reflect, “Hmm, I wonder what he expects to get out of this, and from whom?”
Manafort is the poster child for Washington corruption of the old-fashioned variety – the influence selling and pocket lining kind. A remarkable number of Trump’s people have displayed a similar foible. Just in the first 18 months, the Secretary of HHS (private jets at taxpayer’s expense), the Secretary for Veterans Affairs (vacations for the family at government expense), and the EPA chief (a soundproof booth inter alia), have all been forced out for misusing government funds for their own little luxuries. The Secretary of HUD (a $31,000 dining room set), the Interior Secretary (a land development deal adjacent to his property), the Commerce Secretary (shorting stocks on non-public information), and the Treasury Secretary (misuse of military aircraft) have all been accused of improper spending as well. Far from drained, the swamp has been stocked by this administration.
But there is another kind of corruption that is more disturbing for the health of our republic – the retreat from governing in favor of posturing.
As Yuval Levin notes in a Commentary essay “Congress is Weak Because Its Members Want it to be Weak,” the 21st century’s profusion of technologies permitting transparency have had some good but many baleful effects. Because virtually everything is televised, politics itself has become less and less about actual governing, with the trades and compromises that requires, and more like performance art.
This tendency among legislators to grandstand and to posture as the brave truth tellers condemning the “dysfunction” of their own institution, is actually the true dysfunction. When nearly every member seeks to be a cable or local TV star rather than a lawmaker, it’s no wonder that very little actual legislating gets done. As Levin notes, even controlling both chambers and with a Republican president poised to sign anything they send up, the Republican Congress has achieved very little. They passed a tax cut, but concerning the other priorities they campaigned on for years – reforming the health care system, adjusting the immigration laws, confronting the entitlement crisis – they have done nothing and seem to have no plans. As for the chief job of Congress, developing a budget, well, for the first time in 40 years, neither chamber has even considered a budget resolution. And while Republican leaders demur, the President is again threatening a government shutdown.
That we have a president who struts and howls and shows little interest in the mechanics (to say nothing of the norms) of governing, is well known. But the Congress, designed by the founders to be the most powerful branch, is willingly surrendering its intended role for the pleasures of a few hits on MSNBC or FoxNews. That is an outcome that the founders didn’t anticipate and will likely outlast our current Tweeter-in-Chief.
Published in Politics
As regards Rob, I think you’re being overly sensitive to reasonable criticisms. Trump is a mixed bag, some quite good and some quite bad. For people who value civility, dignity, integrity, and basic traditional virtues, he’s a hard guy to like. For people who are more pragmatically focused on outcome, it’s easy to appreciate a lot of what he’s done. For people who take a long view and are thinking about big-picture conservatism (and that would include the Ricochet podcast guys — and me), Trump is problematic. For people who are most concerned about the short term and hitting back, I think it’s easy to like the man.
Trump is good and bad — more so than most Presidents, in my opinion.
Didn’t I just say I wanted to avoid a fruitless debate on Trump? I disagree with you pretty much across the board on Trump, but so what? You going to change your mind? Am I? No and no, so let’s just not.
Now slow down, pardner! A moment ago you accused Rob Long that he isn’t “as open minded as you might think.” Let’s be open-minded together for a moment.
I said Trump is a mix of good and bad. I voted for him, I’ll vote for him again, and I say far more nice things about him than un-nice things. But can we agree that he’s a mix of good and bad? Can we be that open-minded together?
Sure, he’s a mix of good and bad, like you, me, Rob, and every other human being that occupied the Oval Office. But when you get into subjective terms like civility, dignity, etc…there’s no end to that discussion, and no hard definitions either. What you think is undignified I might call being blunt. What I see as being hard-nosed and pro ‘Merca you might see as being undignified.
Back to Rob for a second, when I said that about Rob I ended it with a statement that’s it’s all subjective, it was my opinion. Nobody has to agree with my opinion (except my cat).
Yes Trump is a mixed bag and has character defects like everybody else. But the results of his policies are beyond my wildest dreams for a President elected in 2016, so what good does it do to throw snark his way every chance a person has? How does that advance conservative goals or policies? I’m not saying Trump is not to be criticized, there is no cult of Trump here, I’m saying let the left own snark and petty insults. We don’t need it on our side.
I agree. That’s why I so rarely criticize him; he gets more than enough. I think this is a fair complaint about Jay and Mona.
That’s fair. I don’t like petty insults. I think, were you to listen to a recent Ricochet podcast, you’d find few petty insults. That’s my impression, anyway.