Donald Trump once told voters he was fighting a corrupt political system. With Elon Musk operating with impunity throughout the federal government, Trump has taken political corruption to new and unprecedented lengths.
Nearly a decade on, as he tasks the world’s richest man with slashing and burning through the institutions millions of American families rely on, it’s easy to forget Donald Trump first rose to political heights by promising to take on Washington corruption.
He correctly painted his opponent Hillary Clinton, who had taken millions of dollars for speeches to Wall Street banks and had a history of corruption and pay-to-play with corporate donors, as “corrupt.” To show that “our system is broken,” Trump openly admitted that he had, as a businessman, given money “to everybody,” including Democratic politicians like Clinton, so that “when I need something from them” later on, “they are there for me.” The fact that he was “paying my own way,” or self-funding his 2016 campaign, meant he was “not part of the corrupt system” as a candidate, he told voters, vowing instead to “listen to your voice, to hear your cries for help.” He even put out a plan to “Make Our Government Honest Again” that involved getting lobbyists out of official positions.
“Our movement is about replacing a failed and . . . totally corrupt establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American people,” Trump told voters a month before he was first elected.
This kind of talk made its way into even his most recent campaign. Over the past year, Trump complained about “corrupt politicians” robbing Social Security to “fund their pet projects,” and pledged to “reclaim our democracy from Washington corruption” and take on “the corruption that has plagued our federal government and harmed…
Auteur: Branko Marcetic
