Corruption In Plain Sight Is Still Very Much Corruption
The one neat trick that Trump and his supporters use to get away with institutionalized grift.
Whenever I hear Donald Trump’s supporters defend him from charges of corruption, I think of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Purloined Letter.”1 In that short story, a French Minister is able to hide a very valuable document from the Parisian police by, well, not hiding it. As Poe’s detective C. Auguste Dupin explains, “the more satisfied I became that, to conceal this letter, the Minister had resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of not attempting to conceal it at all.”
The thing about Trump is that his corruption is committed almost entirely out in the open — and to his supporters, doing something in public is the ultimate get-out-of-jail free card.
In early 2016 Donald Trump famously said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" At the time Trump was referencing the die-hard loyalty of his supporters. Upon reflection, however, there is a second way to think about that statement. It is that Trump believes he can say or do anything and it will not affect his political standing.
Later in 2016, Ezra Klein Vox-splained that this was Trump’s political superpower:
You cannot embarrass Donald Trump. You cannot back him down with questions that make other candidates buckle. And the crowd loves him for it. They love him because he does not back down. The fact that Trump doesn’t back down is the core of Trumpism….
Donald Trump proved that you cannot embarrass Donald Trump. He is a man who lives entirely without shame or self-doubt. It’s like a superpower. And every time he refuses to back down, every time he shows what you can do and say if you have no shame, his supporters thrill to him a little more.
This observation is nearly a decade old but it is worth remembering, because it highlights an important asymmetry between Trump and his political opponents. During his presidential runs, Trump accused both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden of massive corruption. With Clinton it was her speaking fees and philanthropic foundation; with Biden it was his family, particularly his son Hunter. In both cases there was just enough there there for Clinton and Biden to feel some discomfort about it. Because Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden are not sociopaths, they feel shame in these moments. This makes their lies and half-truths all the more awkward as a result.
Trump, on the other hand, is not a liar so much as a bullshit artist. He does not care whether he is telling the truth or not, which means that on occasion, he stumbles into some truth, even about himself. His lack of shame, however, enables him to plow full steam ahead past any perception of corruption. Indeed, his shamelessness sends a signal to his supporters that if he’s not embarrassed by what he’s done, why should they be?
This is precisely how Trump’s supporters have defended him in recent weeks and months. In May CNN’s Scott Jennings defended Donald Trump’s egregious pay-for-play pardon scheme by saying that at least he’s doing it out in the open: “it’s being done out in the open, it’s being done in the light of day, we’re not doing it at the 11th hour… Donald Trump is fully owning these decisions.”
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson similarly defended Trump’s pardons using the exact same line of argument:
House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared blasé over concerns that Donald Trump is using his presidential power to help line his pockets, arguing that, unlike Joe Biden, the president does “everything out in the open.”
While speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper on State of the Union Sunday, the GOP congressman rushed to the president’s defense over alleged conflicts of interest stemming from a recent private dinner with top investors in his meme coin, $TRUMP….
“The difference, of course, is that President Trump does everything out in the open. He’s not trying to hide anything,” Johnson said. “There's no shell companies or fake LLCs or fake family businesses. He’s putting it out there, so everybody can evaluate for themselves.”….
“I mean, again, I don’t know anything about that dinner. I do know that President Trump is the most transparent president in the most transparent administration, probably in history. He has nothing to hide,” he said.
And White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has also defended Trump from corruption questions by asserting that Trump “has been incredibly transparent with his own personal financial obligations.”
This argument that Trump’s transparency and lack of shame means he cannot be corrupt also works on the mainstream media. To be fair, that’s because it has long been a dictum inside the Beltway that “the coverup is always worse than the crime.”
For example, here’s what Politico’s Playbook had to say about Trump’s media availability compared to his predecessor:
By lunchtime today it will have been 48 hours since Donald Trump stepped in front of a TV camera for a speech or Q&A — the first time that’s happened (outside of the weekends) since he returned to the White House on Jan. 20. Whatever your politics, that’s a remarkable record of public availability, especially when compared to his famously sheltered predecessor. And look how that turned out.
By the numbers: A quick trawl through the archives suggests Trump 2.0 has done media on 111 of his 138 days back in office — an 80 percent hit rate that includes weekends and must put him on course to being just about the most-accessible president in modern history. And aside from the lamentable attempt to ban AP, he’s basically taken questions from all-comers. It’s impressive stuff.
In case anyone still needs this hammering home for them, the Joe Biden experience shows just how important it is that leaders are held up to regular scrutiny. Trump’s answers may sometimes be rambling, erratic — or even downright unpleasant — but every American voter can see where he’s at.
There is a grain of truth to this point: transparency and accessibility are almost always better than opacity and unavailability. The problem comes when observers infer from the transparency that Trump has done nothing wrong. He has — he just doesn’t have any shame about it.
Donald Trump is not attempting to conceal his corruption. That does not make his corruption any less disgusting and deformative of the American political experiment.
Yesterday’s post was inspired by an Arthur Conan Doyle short story about Sherlock Holmes, today’s by an Edgar Allen Poe short story about C. Auguste Dupin… the hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World is absolutely crushing all other newsletters with 19th century fictional detective literary references!
It works if enough people are cynical enough & blame their government enough for all manner of ills. “Well, they all lie.” The attitude of low expectations. It’s the same as not giving a sh—. Reminds me of the famous statement by a bank robber:” I rob banks because that’s where the money is.” This leveling out of corruption & truth telling means government is meaningless, truth carries no weight, robbing the treasury (taxpayers) because that’s where the money is is fine because I tell you that’s what I’m doing. Tell me again about the transparency of Trump University & the so-called foundation. And the tax records that are never revealed - very out in the open.
A country that was once a strong democracy can’t fall into the abyss of corruption & dictatorship without the willing cooperation of enough of its citizens. Enough Americans hate their government so much hat its ok to see it destroyed because, hey, it’s ou on the open!
Trump found his way to the ultimate grift by finding the right marks (see above) & the key to his ultimate subsidy. When you don’t expect much, you usually don’t get much - and, thanks to those marks, we got worse than not much. And millions of them think it will never hurt them (newsflash: he hurts ALL of us) but will hurt “those people.” And even if they are directly hurt - well, a small price to pay ‘transparency’ & showing those libs & the world how tough we are.
What this lack of embarrassment also allows is to openly promote white supremacy that for the past 50 years has become socially acceptable. Having lived in the South in 1970's, the thing that pissed off the bigots the most was you couldn't say the "n" word in public anymore.