Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Saturday, December 8, 2018

Yeah...So

Much of what Mueller has been dribbling out the last few days is what those of us who cared to try and follow these threads have known all along.  Russia helped the Trump campaign in many different ways.  As (I think) Josh Marshall pointed out, the dumbest and worst explanation always is the right one - Trump's Razor. 

What Mueller is doing to putting the evidence into the record.  And, yes, this is the biggest scandal in the history of the presidency.  And the Russia stuff is only part of it.  There's emoluments.  There's various garden variety scandals up and down the administration that feels like the Harding Administration.  Typically, the Unholy Trinity of Presidential Scandals consists of Grant (the Whiskey Ring, Fisk and Gould), Harding (Teapot Dome, the Veteran's Department scandal) and Nixon (Watergate, Agnew). Watergate is obviously the most damaging, because of its abuse of power.

Trump has likely blown through all of those.  He has the base corruption of the Whiskey Ring and Teapot Dome, the abuse of power and cover-up of Nixon.  He combines it with monumental stupidity.  Grant and Harding were, at least, personally honest.  They trusted people around them far more than they should have.  Nixon was personally involved in the corruption, but he at least had native intelligence and enough respect for the Republican Party to step down when asked.

Trump has none of these things.  He is all the worst of Grant and Harding, trusting figures like Stephen Miller, Ryan Zinke, Tom Price, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort.  He has the personal involvement of Nixon, without the intelligence to understand that there are in fact limits on his power.

So, this is the most corrupt, scandalous administration in history.  The response by the GOP - both its voters and its elected officials - is a resounding...so, what?

It's not just Trump.

It never has been.

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