The Full-Spectrum Corruption of Donald Trump

It is a stunning turnabout. A party that once spoke with urgency and apparent conviction about the importance of ethical leadership — fidelity, honesty, honor, decency, good manners, setting a good example — has hitched its wagon to the most thoroughly and comprehensively corrupt individual who has ever been elected president. Some of the men who have been elected president have been unscrupulous in certain areas — infidelity, lying, dirty tricks, financial misdeeds — but we’ve never before had the full-spectrum corruption we see in the life of Donald Trump.

.. And the moral indictment against Mr. Trump is obvious and overwhelming. Corruption has been evident in Mr. Trump’s private and public life,

  • in how he has treated his wives,
  • in his business dealings and scams,
  • in his pathological lying and cruelty,
  • in his bullying and shamelessness,
  • in his conspiracy-mongering and appeals to the darkest impulses of Americans. (Senator Bob Corker, a Republican, refers to the president’s race-based comments as a “base stimulator.”)

Mr. Trump’s corruptions are ingrained, the result of a lifetime of habits. It was delusional to think he would change for the better once he became president.

.. Some of us who have been lifelong Republicans and previously served in Republican administrations held out a faint hope that our party would at some point say “Enough!”; that there would be some line Mr. Trump would cross, some boundary he would transgress, some norm he would shatter, some civic guardrail he would uproot, some action he would take, some scheme or scandal he would be involved in that would cause large numbers of Republicans to break with the president. No such luck. Mr. Trump’s corruptions have therefore become theirs. So far there’s been no bottom, and there may never be.

.. the Republican Party’s as-yet unbreakable attachment to Mr. Trump is coming at quite a cost. There is the rank hypocrisy, the squandered ability to venerate public character or criticize Democrats who lack it, and the damage to the white Evangelical movement, which has for the most part enthusiastically rallied to Mr. Trump and as a result has been largely discredited.

.. Mr. Trump and the Republican Party are right now the chief emblem of corruption and cynicism in American political life, of an ethic of might makes right. Dehumanizing others is fashionable and truth is relative. (“Truth isn’t truth,” in the infamous words of Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani.) They are stripping politics of its high purpose and nobility.

.. A warning to my Republican friends: The worst is yet to come. Thanks to the work of Robert Mueller — a distinguished public servant, not the leader of a “group of Angry Democrat Thugs” — we are going to discover deeper and deeper layers to Mr. Trump’s corruption. When we do, I expect Mr. Trump will unravel further as he feels more cornered, more desperate, more enraged; his behavior will become ever more erratic, disordered and crazed.

Most Republicans, having thrown their MAGA hats over the Trump wall, will stay with him until the end. Was a tax cut, deregulation and court appointments really worth all this?

By a 3-to-1 margin, Trump supporters embrace his personality over his policies

If you spend any time with supporters of President Trump, something becomes quickly apparent. Ask them why they stand with the president and the first response will generally be something abstract: Trump is making America great again. He’s putting America first. He’s delivering for the people. After eight years of Barack Obama, Trump is turning things around. Some will mention the economy; fewer will mention other policy issues. But generally the theme is that they support Trump for being Trump.

.. a bit under 60 percent — indicated that the rationale for their support stemmed from his personality and approach to the job vs. his policies or values.

.. personality is preferred to policies among Trump supporters, with a slightly higher percentage pointing to policies and values than last year.

.. On the question of whether Trump has used his position to inappropriately enrich himself, his family or his friends, Republicans have gotten more confident in the president. They assumed he would not by a 41-point margin in 2016. They now believe he hasn’t by a 58-point margin.

.. Interestingly, though, perceptions that Trump is dishonest are only the third-most common concern that people express about his presidency. The most common concern, like the most common reason that supporters like him, is his conduct and personality.

.. Only about a quarter of the country points to Trump’s policies as their main concern or reason to be enthusiastic about his presidency. More than half point to his personality and approach to the job as why they are or are not concerned about where his presidency is headed.