Drain the swamp, eh?
5/1/19 21:32![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mahnmut posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
talkpoliticsSo far, President Trump has been caught up in a corruption scandal involving two of his associates, Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort. The White House is sinking further into the Washington swamp that he promised to drain.
Day after day, month after month, we watch his family use and abuse a system that's supposed to bhe based on checks and balances, tearing down anything or anybody who doesn't bow down to them and lick their boots and allow them to line their pockets and deflect attention from the truth.
It's a pattern and everyone gets it, and they're still watching every move. I'm left with the impression that Trump believes that all politicians are as corrupt as he is, and that his behaviour would go unnoticed, as being normal for Washington. He grew up around the NY mob, and assumed the rest of the world is like that. Trump having a severe case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder has not helped matters.? It's this mindset that genuinely doesn't allow him to understand what all the fuss is about. He points the finger at other people because he is convinced they've done everything he's done, only worse than him. And he feels victimized, as in "Why pick on me? What about them? It's not fair!" Being surrounded by corrupt people like himself (first the NY mafia, then the Russian oligarchs, and how the GOP kleptocrats), his beliefs about widespread corruption only get reinforced.
He cannot understand that there can be honorable, non-corruptible people who will never do the things he's done. He also cannot understand that his corruption is now so brazen and so blatantly obvious, that it's laid out there for everyone to see. Only his fellow criminals and his blindly trusting hard core base continue to deny the obvious.?
As for the broader picture, I think the 80/20 rule definitely applies. 80% of people are basically decent, even if misguided or of low intelligence. I doubt most of the people you work with are corrupt, and most people enter politics with good intentions. If you want to be a real crook, join Goldman Sachs. Once they get to Washington, the environment will corrupt them. Most politicians are patriots, or else the country would collapse, like Zimbabwe. I've been to very corrupt countries, and the US is not like them. I hope that the AI singularity we've been promised will produce some outstanding robot politicians, who can be programmed to be perfect. Humans never will be. Either that or Jeri Ryan as the first woman president, a Borg that could assimilate me any day. By the way, why are voters never blamed??
Day after day, month after month, we watch his family use and abuse a system that's supposed to bhe based on checks and balances, tearing down anything or anybody who doesn't bow down to them and lick their boots and allow them to line their pockets and deflect attention from the truth.
It's a pattern and everyone gets it, and they're still watching every move. I'm left with the impression that Trump believes that all politicians are as corrupt as he is, and that his behaviour would go unnoticed, as being normal for Washington. He grew up around the NY mob, and assumed the rest of the world is like that. Trump having a severe case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder has not helped matters.? It's this mindset that genuinely doesn't allow him to understand what all the fuss is about. He points the finger at other people because he is convinced they've done everything he's done, only worse than him. And he feels victimized, as in "Why pick on me? What about them? It's not fair!" Being surrounded by corrupt people like himself (first the NY mafia, then the Russian oligarchs, and how the GOP kleptocrats), his beliefs about widespread corruption only get reinforced.
He cannot understand that there can be honorable, non-corruptible people who will never do the things he's done. He also cannot understand that his corruption is now so brazen and so blatantly obvious, that it's laid out there for everyone to see. Only his fellow criminals and his blindly trusting hard core base continue to deny the obvious.?
As for the broader picture, I think the 80/20 rule definitely applies. 80% of people are basically decent, even if misguided or of low intelligence. I doubt most of the people you work with are corrupt, and most people enter politics with good intentions. If you want to be a real crook, join Goldman Sachs. Once they get to Washington, the environment will corrupt them. Most politicians are patriots, or else the country would collapse, like Zimbabwe. I've been to very corrupt countries, and the US is not like them. I hope that the AI singularity we've been promised will produce some outstanding robot politicians, who can be programmed to be perfect. Humans never will be. Either that or Jeri Ryan as the first woman president, a Borg that could assimilate me any day. By the way, why are voters never blamed??
Brief off topic note:
Date: 6/1/19 00:20 (UTC)I think Trump illustrates the USA is converging ever more closely with the rest of our hemisphere. He's a generic Latin American caudillo in practice, right down to the xenophobia, corruption, and belief that laws are something that happen to other people.
The USA in practice has always been the most South American Anglosphere society, and it's a fitting and grimly comical irony that a xenophobe preaching hatred of southern America should be the man to define the convergence with well....South America. His excessive reliance on generals and sheer paranoid ranting would fit perfectly with the MO of a Chavez or a Pinochet.
Re: Brief off topic note:
Date: 6/1/19 08:01 (UTC)Re: Brief off topic note:
Date: 6/1/19 08:25 (UTC)I still think of you as underlankers, but that's because I'm old and senile. :)
(no subject)
Date: 6/1/19 19:33 (UTC)