- A UK journalist’s characterization of Trump, and America;
- Why voters keep shrugging off the corruption of Trump and his staff;
- Robert Reich’s characterization of the current occupant of the Oval Office;
- And how what astonishes me is how so many people don’t care about any of this.
A quote going around today on FB, from UK writer Oliver Kornetzky. (Examples:
here, and here)
I’ll quote a portion. About Trump:
…the sleaze of a conman, the cowardice of a draft dodger, the gluttony of a parasite, the racism of a Klansman, the sexism of a back-alley creep, the ignorance of a bar-stool drunk, and the greed of a hedge-fund ghoul…
About America:
…arrogance dressed up as exceptionalism, stupidity passed off as common sense, cruelty sold as toughness, greed exalted as ambition, and corruption worshiped like gospel.
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On that note.
Vox, Abdallah Fayyad, 25 Sept 2025: Why voters keep shrugging off Trump’s corruption, subtitled “Americans say they despise corruption. So why is Trump still president?”
Beginning:
Tom Homan, the White House border czar, allegedly accepted $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents posing as business executives during a sting operation last year, according to MSNBC. The payment was made after Homan implied that he could help the agents secure government contracts in a second Trump administration.
In layperson’s terms, this is what bribery looks like: officials promising favors in exchange for money. …
So why don’t people care? The article claims that it’s because of Trump’s ability to subvert one of the basic functions of human nature.
Since Trump’s first term, a lot has been said about his attacks on institutions and his utter disregard for the rules and norms that preserve American democracy. But one of the biggest guardrails that Trump quickly shattered isn’t any kind of institution or law; it’s the effectiveness of public shaming.
Public shaming can be a powerful weapon for citizens protesting their government. It creates an environment that makes the shamed person lose legitimacy, and it puts pressure on institutions or other people in power to take action. And the prospect of public shaming likely deters some politicians from taking shortcuts or engaging in petty corruption, not out of principle or ethics but out of fear of getting caught. After all, public shaming was a tool that ultimately helped push many politicians to resign in disgrace, from President Richard Nixon to former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Trump has discovered that not caving to shame eventually leads people to let go and move on. …
My comments: again, think about instinctive human nature. Someone who breaks the trust of the members of a community is *shamed* — not punished necessarily, but regarded in a new manner, as not to be trusted, moved to the outside edge of the circle of common moral concern. Trump simply blows that away. He ignores it, leading many people think, maybe that wasn’t such a big deal after all… and anyway those rules about “corruption” are pretty technical. It’s more important to support members of the tribe.
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Robert Reich today.
Robert Reich, 25 Sept 2025: Warning to you and your loved ones, subtitled “None of us is safe when Trump acts as judge and jury.”
I know, I know, more of the same. Noted for this line:
Let me put this as directly as I can. The current occupant of the Oval Office is a thin-skinned sociopath who cannot tolerate criticism and who lies like most people breathe.
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What astonishes me about all the above is how most people *don’t care.* And would keep voting for Trump, if they could. I think it boils down to base, tribalistic, human nature, and the concurrent inability to expand one’s moral circle or to think more than short term. And this, to me, is an indication of the limitations of the human species. This kind of thinking will ignore or deny existential global threats, until they defeat us. Fermi’s paradox, explained.
