The Most Offending Part of a Trump Presidency Again
 |
| Kudos to Sam Lyon on this great clip-art |
Ms. Fredrickson is an adviser at the Open Markets Institute, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, and a visiting professor of law at Georgetown University.
There are almost daily headlines now describing what Donald Trump would do if elected: the mass deportations, the pardons handed out to his friends and golf buddies, the Justice Department settling scores and waging personal vendettas. The former president has even promised violence if the election goes against him, warning that it could be a “blood bath.”
But as worrying as these prospects are, they are far from the biggest threats he poses. What we should fear most is Mr. Trump transforming our government into a modern-day Tammany Hall, and installing a kleptocratic leadership that will be difficult if not impossible to dislodge.
I do not discount the possibility of state-sponsored violence, and I worry deeply about the politicization of the civil service. But those are, for the most part, threats, and theories, and while they need to be taken seriously, people should be paying more attention to a far more likely reality: that Mr. Trump would spend much of his time in office enriching himself. He failed spectacularly as an insurrectionist and as a disrupter of the civil service, and his clownish and chaotic style may well lead to failure again — but he has succeeded time and time again in the art of the steal. Suppose his grift continues into a second term. In that case, it will not only contribute to the fraying trust Americans have in their institutions but also impair our ability to lead the world through a series of escalating crises.
Recall how Mr. Trump operated in his first term. Not only did he keep his stake in more than a hundred businesses, he made it a practice to visit his properties around the country, forcing taxpayers to pay for rooms and amenities at Trump hotels for the Secret Service and other staff members who accompanied him — money that went straight into his bank accounts and those of his business partners. Those interested in currying favor with the president, from foreign governments to would-be government contractors, knew to spend money at his hotels and golf clubs. According to internal Trump hotel documents, T-Mobile executives spent over $195,000 at the Trump Washington Hotel after announcing a planned merger with Sprint in April 2018. Two years later, the merger was approved.
Government, like fish, rots from the head down. Mr. Trump’s example freed up cabinet members to award huge contracts to their friends, business associates, and political allies, while others ran their departments like personal fiefs. After the State Department’s inspector general was fired, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s use of official trips for clandestine meetings with conservative donors and his family’s alleged misuse of staff members for tasks like walking his dog, picking up his wife from the airport and fetching his takeout came to light. And, in addition to being accused of improperly accepting gifts from those seeking influence, several other cabinet members were alleged to have used government funds for private travel. These may seem like banal infractions, but taken together, they are a reflection of who Mr. Trump is and how he governs.
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
Throughout his life, through Trump-branded wine, chocolate bars, sneakers, NFTs, ties, MAGA paraphernalia, a $59.99 Bible (of all things), and, most recently, his Truth Social meme stock ploy, he has shown an unstoppable drive to enrich himself at all costs. He sees politics, like business, as a zero-sum game in which he wins only if someone else loses. These are the instincts that drive corruption, kleptocracy, and grift. And, if the past is prologue, we’re looking at a much more damaging sequel.
In a second term, Mr. Trump will have more freedom and power to undertake grift. He has already vowed to use pardons to protect supporters and possibly even himself from efforts to curb corruption (which may explain the nonchalance with which his son-in-law Jared Kushner has greeted criticism about the conflicts of interest raised by his recent real estate investments in Serbia and Albania, as well as the Saudi, Qatari, and Emirati investments in his wealth fund). He and his political advisers are building a deep bench of committed and loyal employees who could corrode and potentially destroy mechanisms of accountability in government, paving the way for kleptocratic leaders to entrench themselves in the bureaucracy where many would be able to remain past Mr. Trump’s term. And the mere presence of a phalanx of unquestioning lieutenants in the civil service will ensure that other civil servants fear retribution for objecting to self-enrichment.
Naturally, I worry about other things, too, particularly the possibility of political violence. Mr. Trump could well claim he has won the election no matter the vote count and call on his supporters to rise up to ensure his takeover. Even before the votes are cast, his supporters are threatening election officials, judicial officials, and state legislators, trying to intimidate them into either helping Mr. Trump or stepping aside to be replaced by Trumpists.
But legal, law enforcement and security obstacles still need to be put in place to slow down or stop these efforts. We must remember that this time around, President Biden will still be president, able to control the military and federal law enforcement, and Congress has amended the outdated and vague Electoral Count Act to make it much harder for Mr. Trump’s congressional allies to contest a Trump loss in the electoral college or on Capitol Hill.
No such guardrails exist to curb Trumpian corruption. The Supreme Court, itself corrupt, has made it virtually impossible to prosecute even the most blatant corruption by government officials.
In a kleptocracy, corruption is a feature, not a bug, where politicians apply the law inconsistently, favoring friends and punishing enemies. By controlling government assets and handing them out to friends and family — and dangling possibilities in front of would-be supporters — as well as using politically motivated prosecutions, kleptocrats cement their control of government and disempower opponents. We need only recall Russia’s erstwhile effort to create a democracy: It quickly drained away into the pockets of Vladimir Putin and his oligarchs, leading to the hopelessness and acquiescence of Russian citizens once they realized they could no longer change their situation through democratic means.
Now we face that danger at home. If Mr. Trump wins, America will have a leader invested in his own personal power, both financial and punitive, and supported by a much more capable team. When lucrative contracts are handed out to Trumpist loyalists regardless of merit and dissident voices are targeted and silenced, America’s leadership on the global stage will dissolve when it’s needed most.
The consequences will echo for generations if we lack the ability and the will to attack problems like climate change, mass migration, a new space race, and multiple wars. Nothing of substance will be done, Mr. Trump’s cronies will continue to act with impunity, and millions of Americans — already worried that elites are held to a different standard than regular people are — will lose even more confidence in their government, convinced that everyone in Washington is out for himself.
This combination of passivity on the one hand and impunity on the other could be fatal for our democracy. This is the true danger Mr. Trump poses.
Comments