Campaigning for the 2024 elections, President Donald Trump promised American voters “the best jobs, the biggest pay cheques, the brightest economic future the world has ever seen”. Two years on, billionaires boomed; ordinary Americans fumed. It was a turning point when corruption overtook high gas prices as American voters’ number one concern. Author Anne Applebaum says Trump and his far-right ideologues have transformed the US into an “empire of grift”.
But millions of Americans live in ghettos of thrift. Subsidy cuts for the poor, tax cuts for the rich. Corruption drives social evils like inequality, injustice, poverty and impunity. Independent analysts believe citizens gave Trump too long a rope. Many viewed him as entertainment. Trump’s balance sheets may be opaque, but his conduct and comments in office are transparent. He declares openly what he covets, why he attacks, whom he hates. Says political analyst Mark Preston, “Bad economy, bad policies, bad candidates and a president who created an incredible amount of problems for his party. A perfect storm.” For whom? Trump’s “golden age” is diamond for the rich, mercury for the poor who eat cat food.
Fed on a diet of exceptionalism, many Americans assume that evils like corruption and poverty are third world problems. But the “third world” spotted corruption in the US long before Americans did because the patterns are familiar. American neo-imperialism manifests itself in billion-dollar business contracts that plunder resources, pollute nature, destroy jobs, flaunt gilded splendour. Jaw-dropping are the conflicts of interest and self-dealing that even Trump-backed judges blocked.
Trump does not see all this as corruption. The riches are privileges, his entitlements as president. He sees differently. Mostly he sees himself. In Usha Vance’s storytime video series about children’s books, Trump admits, “I end up reading mostly newspapers. I usually read stories about myself.” When he is not looking at himself, he looks at strange things. In a rambling, self-glorifying two-hour speech in Texas, Trump digressed from his make-believe achievements to describe singer Nicki Minaj’s improbably protruding bottom as “beautiful”. He crooned that his Republican senate candidate Jon Husted’s fingers looked like “sausages”, his “a*s” a “pile of muscle”.
A pile of appalling comments and actions provokes opponents to conclude Trump is unfit for office and should be removed under the 25th amendment of the US constitution. Instead of looking at the anatomy of his favourites, he should have been looking at maps and graphs that showed his popularity hitting an unlovely rock bottom. His grandiose, bellicose and sometimes morose utterances are increasingly bizarre and inappropriate, utterly irrelevant to citizens’ concerns. People are crushed by rising prices, but he proclaims “inflation is down” (it isn’t), “we are winning in Iran” (they aren’t), “America is the greatest country” (it was), solar panels “fry” birds (they don’t), and he wants to rename the Atlantic “Trump Ocean” (please don’t).
Fuelling the slow-burn public anger over corruption and inflation are Trump’s typical insensitive, tone-deaf remarks. He offered $1,000 to babies for investment, $2,000 to adults if Republicans win—promises that analysts call “bribes”. Criticism incites defiance. Trump upped the grift-gift to $5,000. And then he gloated from the stage, “You’ll be my guest at Mar-a-Lago. The problem is that for $5,000, the most you’ll be able to buy is a hamburger and maybe a small dessert. I’m not even sure you could buy that. No, don’t go there. That’s not a good place if you’re price-conscious.”
And so, corruption became a bigger issue than gas prices. It is the elephant in the room.
Pratap is an author and journalist.
