I was thinking about this last night.
Quite a few people are complaining that those in Trump's orbit are only being nailed because of the light being shone on them as a result of their proximity to him. I can't really argue against that, and it's a wretched orange glow to boot.
If Trump's base had any brains at all, they'd realise that Trump and a large number of his aides ARE the swamp that they hate so much. You could take any random selection of connected parties of Washington bigwigs and if you scratched hard enough on the surface you'd find some kind of malfeasance. At least that's what they believe and I'm not entirely sure I'd disagree.
That's...iffy. If by "malfeasance" you mean "shady-looking but legal", probably yes at upper levels. A lot of people would be surprised at the amount of time elected officials spend pretty much begging for money, and that inevitably leads to things that look iffy. It's a good reason to go with public financing for elections, but for now that's not happening - and doesn't address things like a spouse that works for this or that industry. Career bureaucrats generally have rules that go way too far to keep up appearances, just because the line has to be *somewhere*, and so it was placed at "accept a free donut".
If "legally iffy, but not important" is the criteria, oh definitely. This is like going a year without breaking *any* laws - it just won't happen, and you'll almost certainly go unpunished because there are just so many damn laws that nobody cares about and aren't of any importance, or that you'd be a fool to follow in specific circumstances.
Dolt 45, though, is widely believed to be mobbed up, mostly because he'd be a complete failure as a shift manager at a Party City, and yet lives in a gold-plated apartment at the top of a tower with his name on it. HE's not just obvious, as you say below, he's ostentatious about it. And the fact that he routinely gotten away with it, while pooper people go to jail for weed, is a major problem, but it's also a major test of outr legal system, one that the GOP, at least, is failing spectacularly.
Sure, Trump is absolutely a crook, and his cronies are crooks. They're just much more obvious crooks than the usual people on the hill. But Trump lied to his base and used them for his own benefit. The 'law and order' president has just gleefully dumped his own wad of toxic waste into the swamp in order to make it feel more like home. I hope that people who voted for him for this reason will see it.
The problem isn't that he "tricked" people. The problem is that one major group tricked *themselves*, while the other major group is happy to be harmed, just so long as the people they hate are hurt more. In short, the people who really wanted help, and overlooked all the cruel things he promised because "Well, nobody gets treated like that", and what Clinton put in "the basket of deplorables". The first is shocked to discover their spouses, friends, and coworkers being snatched up and deported, are screaming about how they're being "treated like a ******* black person" when the cops manhandle them, and so on. They just assumed that that kind of thing wouldn't happen, or at least not to them, because they've never faced actual cruelty.
And the white supremacists, the guys who want to ban transgendered people from public life, and so on? Well they're the cruel ones who have taught everyone else that, actually no, some people actually will tear everything down just to see someone else suffer. Think of logger or EG3k here - and several people who are still members here, those fools who attacked Charlottesville, the pharmacists who steal the prescriptions of transgendered people and so on. The phrase "Law and Order", coined by Nixon to express disgust for civil rights, was an obvious nod directly at them - as opposed to the phrase "rule of law", which people use when they mean the same rules for everybody.
that's why I've been saying I hope Dolt 45's voters are hurt the worst. People from the first group will usually only learn the hard way, and while I don't want them dead (some of them will die, but they voted for it, and I can't stop it), a good medical-based bankruptcy, or a couple years living 8-deep in a studio apartment, will provide them a tough but valuable lesson.
And the "deplorables"? Well, I lack MLK Jr.'s kindness. Screw 'em.
*: I know he said he was making a political point. I don't buy it.
