Trump is Breaking Things That Actually Matter
The following is the transcript of my closing editorial from episode 153 of my news podcast The Mind Killer. If you like it, please consider subscribing to the podcast
I know it’s cool and based and edgy to say things like justice, the rules-based international order, honor and integrity in our representatives, and anything but the Nietzian will to power are fake and gay. And to some extent, that’s true. International and political norms are in some sense polite fictions that get violated all the time. But they’re also ideals, and we’re all better off when our leaders feel at least a little obligation to follow them.
Trump is ruining that. When he does things like pardon the January 6th rioters, random fraudsters, and people who pay into his crypto slush fund, it shows he doesn’t even feel any need to maintain the pretense that it’s anything but a corrupt exercise of pure power. People point to things like Biden pardoning his son or Bill Clinton pardoning his campaign donors, and say it’s the same thing. But it isn’t. Those were corrupt pardons, but they were embarrassing and damaging, which is why they did them right before they left office. The fact that Trump does his corruption out in the open and receives no punishment for it is a meaningful difference.
Ideas matter, and the idea of America matters. It matters that America will defend its allies and never use our military force against them unprovoked. It matters that the President doesn’t tell the Justice Department who to prosecute. It matters that the Fed is independent and often does the opposite of what the President wants. It matters that law enforcement shows their faces. It matters that political allies and even family members of the President can be prosecuted by his attorney general. It matters that the President isn’t open to obvious bribery. It matters that he is polite to other world leaders.
Trump has destroyed all of that. Both in the eyes of the rest of the world, but even more importantly, in the eyes of Americans. Americans now expect our leaders to be crass, corrupt, fraudulent buffoons, and won’t demand anything different in the future. That’s Trump’s real legacy, and it’s a tragedy.