At least when it’s his.

Have you heard about the president who received money from China and other foreign countries? No, not the current president. The former one.

House Republicans recently launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, premised on the claim that he is hiding, in the words of Speaker Mike Johnson, “millions of dollars in payments from America’s foreign adversaries.” As yet, they have produced no evidence to back up the idea that Biden profited. (The payments they have flagged involve the business interests of his son Hunter Biden, who is facing two separate federal indictments at the moment, and his brother James.)

Meanwhile, House Democrats on Thursday released a report detailing how former President Donald Trump received, and then tried to hide, millions in payments from America’s foreign adversaries. Unlike in the impeachment inquiry, which is premised on a suspicion that Republicans hope will turn up evidence, the receipts are here.

…

The saga of the foreign payments is a good case study in how Trump has taught Americans to tolerate brazen corruption—so long as it’s his. To do this, Trump relies on two tactics. First, he does much of it out in the open, recognizing that voters tend to assume that only hidden deeds are nefarious. Second, he finds ways to slow-walk the release of the most damaging information, so that by the time the full picture is clear, the public has become almost inoculated—as though it had been out in the open all along.

Non-paywall link

  • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
    221·
    10 months ago

    America was already tolerating a ton of corruption, though, just much less brazen.

    Basically, bribing a politicians is completely legal as long as you don’t tell the world what you’re bribing them to do.

    Blackmailing them with threats of supporting their opponents if they don’t say or do what you want is completely fine too, apparently.

    The trick is to not be too blatant about it, brag about it, deny it and then brag about it some more like the Mango Mussolini does.

    • thecrotch@sh.itjust.works
      31·
      10 months ago

      Yeah. Every single time there’s an op-ed accusing Trump of inventing something, inevitably it’s just something he exploited and dialed up to 11. The only people more confident of Trump’s abilities than his supporters are his detractors.