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Chait: Trump's Kleptocracy Is So Astounding It Already Feels Like Old News
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/trumps-kleptocracy-already-feels-like-old-news.htmlBut a norm is not a rule, a point Trump has leaned on. “The law is totally on my side, meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest,” he told the New York Times. Disturbingly, this is legally accurate. The strict federal rules about financial conflicts of interest do not apply to the president, whose incentive to avoid self-enrichment is simply assumed. There is no legal mechanism that requires transparency or accountability. In essence, Trump is proposing that we, not he, enter a blind trust: He promises that he will never misuse his power, and we … hope he’s right.
The abuses that have leaked out so far (some through the foreign media, since American reporters were not informed of Trump’s conversations) provide a glimpse into what could easily be a bottomless pit of corruption. Since Trump has refused to disclose his tax returns, or those of his family members, it is possible that business owners or dictators are granting his family excessively generous licensing agreements, or even giving them stock options or cash in return for government favors. Given Trump’s business ethics, which run from refusing to pay contractors and daring them to sue to establishing a fake university to swindle his fans to using his “foundation” to illegally donate to a politician who subsequently did not investigate said university, it would be surprising if he did not eventually accept outright bribery. Once introduced into a political ecosystem, corruption in government tends to spread rapidly. It can infect foreign-policy-making, where overseas partners will seek favors from Trump’s administration, and domestically, where Trump and his allies could form a self-enriching circle that wields state power to exclude both economic competitors and political ones. Astonishingly, the president-elect has treated the sanctity of government as a nonissue. In a recent tweet, he pronounced the question of his own enrichment through power to have been settled by the voters (or at least the Electoral College). “Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world,” he wrote. “Only the crooked media makes this a big deal!” He is not even claiming innocence — he is placing the question itself off-limits.
The controversy over Trump’s tax returns earlier this year set the template for how this drama will likely unspool. At the beginning of the campaign, Trump offered incoherent or contradictory responses to questions about disclosing them, and most journalists assumed he simply had to release them before the election. Many conservatives urged him to do so — it would “enhance his credibility,” suggested a Wall Street Journal editorial. But Trump simply refused, fatalism set in, and the media and the opposition effectively let the matter drop.
-snip-
The question going forward is what other norms Trump can destroy. The potential avenues of abuse for a party in full control of government are vast. It can direct the Department of Justice to hound its political enemies, crack down on voting rights, and use discretionary regulation to punish politically hostile firms and reward compliant ones. Trump already threatened several months ago to use regulatory and tax policy to punish Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, who owns a newspaper (the Washington Post) whose reporting displeased Trump. All these levers of power are legal. Now think ahead to the next presidential election. You know the assumption that the candidate who gets the most votes in a state receives its electoral votes? Also just a norm. Some state legislatures can award their electoral votes any way they like, and most of those legislatures are controlled by the Republican Party.
All these horror scenarios are hypotheticals, but they are only marginally more unthinkable than today’s status quo was a year ago. (And the hijacking of electoral votes even has some precedent: In 2000, when a statewide recount began, Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature openly contemplated awarding all its electoral votes to Bush regardless of who won the recount, until the Supreme Court made this unnecessary.) Trump’s behavior, if successful, would supply proof of concept that he can destroy norms unimpeded. He has already dismantled the twin guardrails against presidential kleptocracy, tax disclosure and personal divestment, in quick succession. It is a chillingly impressive achievement for a man still two months away from assuming the powers of office.
The abuses that have leaked out so far (some through the foreign media, since American reporters were not informed of Trump’s conversations) provide a glimpse into what could easily be a bottomless pit of corruption. Since Trump has refused to disclose his tax returns, or those of his family members, it is possible that business owners or dictators are granting his family excessively generous licensing agreements, or even giving them stock options or cash in return for government favors. Given Trump’s business ethics, which run from refusing to pay contractors and daring them to sue to establishing a fake university to swindle his fans to using his “foundation” to illegally donate to a politician who subsequently did not investigate said university, it would be surprising if he did not eventually accept outright bribery. Once introduced into a political ecosystem, corruption in government tends to spread rapidly. It can infect foreign-policy-making, where overseas partners will seek favors from Trump’s administration, and domestically, where Trump and his allies could form a self-enriching circle that wields state power to exclude both economic competitors and political ones. Astonishingly, the president-elect has treated the sanctity of government as a nonissue. In a recent tweet, he pronounced the question of his own enrichment through power to have been settled by the voters (or at least the Electoral College). “Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world,” he wrote. “Only the crooked media makes this a big deal!” He is not even claiming innocence — he is placing the question itself off-limits.
The controversy over Trump’s tax returns earlier this year set the template for how this drama will likely unspool. At the beginning of the campaign, Trump offered incoherent or contradictory responses to questions about disclosing them, and most journalists assumed he simply had to release them before the election. Many conservatives urged him to do so — it would “enhance his credibility,” suggested a Wall Street Journal editorial. But Trump simply refused, fatalism set in, and the media and the opposition effectively let the matter drop.
-snip-
The question going forward is what other norms Trump can destroy. The potential avenues of abuse for a party in full control of government are vast. It can direct the Department of Justice to hound its political enemies, crack down on voting rights, and use discretionary regulation to punish politically hostile firms and reward compliant ones. Trump already threatened several months ago to use regulatory and tax policy to punish Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, who owns a newspaper (the Washington Post) whose reporting displeased Trump. All these levers of power are legal. Now think ahead to the next presidential election. You know the assumption that the candidate who gets the most votes in a state receives its electoral votes? Also just a norm. Some state legislatures can award their electoral votes any way they like, and most of those legislatures are controlled by the Republican Party.
All these horror scenarios are hypotheticals, but they are only marginally more unthinkable than today’s status quo was a year ago. (And the hijacking of electoral votes even has some precedent: In 2000, when a statewide recount began, Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature openly contemplated awarding all its electoral votes to Bush regardless of who won the recount, until the Supreme Court made this unnecessary.) Trump’s behavior, if successful, would supply proof of concept that he can destroy norms unimpeded. He has already dismantled the twin guardrails against presidential kleptocracy, tax disclosure and personal divestment, in quick succession. It is a chillingly impressive achievement for a man still two months away from assuming the powers of office.
8 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Rounding up political prisoners ain't too far off
