Quote of the Day

There are not many Trump scandals. There is one Trump scandal. Singular: the corruption of the American government by the president and his associates, who are using their official power for personal and financial gain rather than for the welfare of the American people, and their attempts to shield that corruption from political consequences, public scrutiny, or legal accountability.

The president’s opponents have yet to craft a coherent narrative about the Trump administration’s corruption, even though the only major legislative accomplishment Trump has to his name is cutting his own taxes. But his supporters have, ironically, crafted an overarching explanation to account for how the president they voted for, who came to office promising to eliminate official corruption, has come to embody it. The “Deep State” narrative is no more complicated than an attempt to explain the accumulating evidence of misbehavior on the part of the administration as a wide-ranging conspiracy to frame the president. The more evidence of wrongdoing that comes to light, the more certain they are that the conspiracy theory is true. In their own way, Trump supporters have recognized that Trump’s burgeoning list of scandals is made of branches from the same twisted tree.

– Adam Serwer
Excerpted from "There Is Only One Trump Scandal"
The Atlantic
May 21, 2018

Related Off-site Links:
GOP Senator on Trump and the State of Politics: "We May Have Hit Bottom" – Daniella Diaz (CNN, May 23, 2018).
Trump’s Strategic Assault on Democracy, Word by Word – Karen J. Greenberg (TomDispatch.com via Truthdig, May 20, 2018).
Donald Trump and the Disturbing Power of Dehumanizing Language – Brian Resnick (Vox, May 18, 2018).
The Coming Collapse – Chris Hedges (Truthdig, May 20, 2018).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Quote of the Day – March 12, 2018
• Quote of the Day – February 6, 2018
• Global Condemnation for Trump's Latest Ignorant and Racist Comments
• Hope in the Midst of Collapse
• With Republicans at the Helm, It's the United States of Hypocrisy
• Donald Trump: A View from Australia
• Trump's America: Normalized White Supremacy and a Rising Tide of Racist Violence
• Quote of the Day – April 6, 2017
• Quote of the Day – March 26, 2017
• A Profoundly Troubling and Tragic Indictment
• On International Human Rights Day, Saying "No" to Donald Trump and His Fascist Agenda
• Progressive Perspectives on the Election of Donald Trump
• Election Eve Thoughts
• Carrying It On
• Progressive Perspectives on the Rise of Donald Trump
• Trump's Playbook
• Hope, History, and Bernie Sanders