Trump's Economy-Sized Bribe
Isn't it weird how a man wants everyone to believe he would never stoop to bribery also expresses amazement that he would be impeached for electoral crimes when the economy is good?
Leave aside all questions of how good the economy is and why it is good and who it is good for and just grant for the sake of the argument the premise that it's great right now, that we're all better off for it, and it would be much worse if he wasn't president.
Given that no one is trying to impeach him over his economic performance, this isn't a legal defense. His argument amounts t: I'm putting money in your pocket, and if you punish me for my unrelated crimes, I won't do that anymore.
You know… he’s offering a bribe.
The bribery is ongoing and it's happening in plain sight. Every time Donald tries to turn impeachment into a referendum on his supposed job performance and every time his supporters and enablers pick up that cry and echo it, it's an attempt to run the government of the United States not through any rules or laws or any kind of order, but a simple question of greed.
Donald's ethos is that what's good for Donald is good, and he expects everyone to abide by that. Foreign leaders should cozy up to him and flatter him and cater to him because then he'll do what they want and that's good for their countries, and he gets what he wants out of it, which is good for him, meaning it's good for us. As he's so recently and enthusiastically pointed out in regards to his "perfect" call "transcript", he doesn't distinguish between the interests of the company and of himself. He's the president, which means he's the boss, and his experience of being the boss of his company is that his company is his brand is him is his company.
Bribery is second nature to him. His dad used bribes to get plum federal contracts, and then got hauled before a congressional subcommittee because the commissioner he paid of was living a flashy life of luxury well above his stated means and got caught. What young Donald learned from this lesson wasn't that crime doesn't pay or even the value of subtlety. No, what he learned was that bribery is just how you do business, there's no point in having money if you can't flaunt it, and never give Congress an inch when it comes to accountability.
What we are seeing now is simply the inevitable results of those formative lessons playing out at the highest level.
Of course he dangles bribes.
Of course he takes bribes.
We can watch it happen on Twitter every day, where he touts his supposed numbers as though they are a get-out-of-jail-free card in between hyping the properties where foreign governments go to deposit money in his coffers and wealthy lobbyists buy a place at his elbow.
Just another day of business as usual in the United States, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Trump Organization.
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