The sheer depth and breadth of incompetence and corruption in the trump administration has been a very open secret: foreign powers and political allies renting empty blocks of trump properties to put money in his pocket and gain favor with him; making the military land at the airport near his Turnberry property and stay there at inflated prices; charging the Secret Service for use of the facilities at his properties when he golfs; the slew of books written about the monumental clusterfuckery in his administration; etc. etc. ad nauseum. Somehow trump openly had 1,000 scandals, any one of which would have sunk a conventional President, and somehow he shrugged each one off.
But, like they say, for every cockroach you see there are a hundred more. I bet there is even more scandal still to come out into the light eventually.
For me, the question I would want definitively answered is, exactly what was up with his coddling of Putin: Was it all about kompromat, and did that involve money owed or more than that, such as the mythical pee tapes? Was it just that trump loves strongmen dictator types? Most likely both, I’m guessing.
trump met with Putin several times one-on-one-- at first it was with trump’s translator, who he swore to secrecy. After that trump had possibly up to a half dozen meetings with just Putin and his translators. I don’t understand how that didn’t trigger a bigger WTF at the time, and I would like to one day be able to read Marina Gross’ notes from the one-on-one meeting in Helsinki (where trump said to the press ‘I don’t see any reason why’ Russia would have interfered with the election):
I’ve been wondering about this, too. As more people start to have nothing to lose, investigative journalists should be able to get more information. (Not that they haven’t been trying, and discovering a lot as it is.) Also, I think there are still civil cases in court which could eventually yield new information. And, yes, the nation deserves an explanation of the whole Putin thing.
I’m pretty sure Biden will try to sweep most of it under the rug and hope short-attention span Americans forget about it.
Biden does not want his administration to be dominated by headlines of government gone wrong. Rather, he wants to restore faith in the government. Not to mention all presidents have skeletons in the closet and he will too which he does not want the next president trotting out. More, it benefits Biden to be able to work in shady areas. He may decry them when running but most people, once they get power, don’t willingly give any of it up and this would lose Biden power to do things.
Added to that he probably does not want to destabilize the geopolitical scene by bashing Russia. Putin will be totally let off the hook.
Biden wants a return to business as usual. He has shown no inclination to “fix” the government.
Well first of all, it’s not going to all be up tp Biden; as @guizot said, as more people start to have nothing to lose, investigative journalists should be able to get more information.
Secondly, I think your view of Biden is a bit overly cynical. Yes, there are shady areas that all politicians work in. If returning to ‘business as usual’ means listening to experts to solve problems, re-joining international treaties, working with international allies again, and working on policies like better health care that might actually help people instead of a snake oil-selling salesman’s song and dance, that’s enough “fixing” of the government for me, for now.
I know your take on Biden’s ‘uniter’ approach is that he will be duped by Repubs like McConnell, but I think he’s more experienced than that. Healing and moving on is fine and good to an extent, but sweeping everything under the rug that the trump admin fucked up won’t do the Democratic party, or the Democratic process in general, any good. I hope there will be some sort of reckoning.
It’s more than just being duped by McConnell. It’s Biden being in the pocket of big business and Wall Street (remember he was a long time senator from Delaware…IIRC more than 60% of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated there). Biden has done that his whole life. Will he change now?
I do not know. I am hoping that maybe, just maybe, he will realize he is 78 years old and has 4-years to do some real good for the country. So what if he pisses off interest group A, B or C? What can they do to him at this point? He’s due for retirement, he has plenty of wealth and a nice pension. He’ll be fine.
I certainly hope he works to solve the country’s problems. We’ll find out soon enough.
I think what we’ll see is that once Cabinet members are appointed, and heads of various Federal deparments are filled permanently, or filled at all, we’ll start hearing horror stories of incompetence, abandonment and meddling in those departments during Trump’s administration.
I don’t know if there are any scandals or conspiracies sitting right there barely covered that we’ll find out about right away; those would have been found by now. What I think we’ll find is that in say… 2023, something will come to light that has festered for a while- some kind of low-key neglect that becomes an issue several years from now.
Well, I guess the bar is so low for me I’d be fine returning to “normal” levels of corruption for now. The fact that Biden is actually acting presidential, and doing things like immediately working on a plan to combat the coronavirus epidemic instead of shrugging his shoulders and saying “eh, it is what it is”, is refreshing.
There’ll be plenty of time in the next 4 years to become disillusioned with the Biden administration; I’m overriding my natural state of pessimism for now, dammit!
Even if there is a mountain of corruption to be uncovered, a sizable chunk of America would be fatigued of it. By the time Biden is inaugurated, much of America wants to just move past Trump. We’ve/they’ve had enough Trump news to last a lifetime.
I remember watching that Rick Wilson interview with Brian Williams. I laughed till I cried, it was such a perfect description. Williams was rendered speechless for a moment. The whole panel of interviewees were just losing it, laughing so hard. A great moment.
To the OP:
I think the amount of criminality that awaits a reveal is staggering. Trump crimes reflexively. Doesn’t know how to not do it. He has gotten away with it due to his Republican senate enablers and William Barr, plus the sheer volume of it makes it hard to keep track of any one thing. He knows this and relies on the chaos as a protective shield.
In the end, I believe he will end up broke and in custody. Maybe not by the Feds, but certainly by the State of New York and perhaps others.
If Biden had skeletons, wouldn’t Trump’s team have found and exploited them during the election? The best they could come up with was Hunter’s (likely fictional) laptop.
I also don’t want Biden leading the charge to prosecute Trump, but I hope when all the real grift and possible treason* come to light, his commitment to healing the nation won’t stand in the way of the DOJ and state AGs doing their jobs.
I guess my main issue is Biden has never, ever, in his 50 years in politics, shown an inclination as a crusader or a do-gooder. Indeed, we can point to him causing more problems than he has fixed. He has copped to the things he has done wrong, said he wants to fix them but when he had a chance to do that in eight years as VP he didn’t even try.
Will he be different this time? I really, really and truly, hope so but I’m not confident.
Hard disagree. America needs to know how depraved and corrupt this administration has been. I want the 40% who have been defending Trump the last four years to have their words shoved down their throats by facts they can’t dismiss as fake news. And I want the GOP leaders who enabled it all to pay with their careers and potentially their freedom.
As I said…“sizable chunk of America”. Obviously, there are others - such as blue voters - who’d love nothing more than to relive and re-dig up Trump problems again and again. But a considerable number of centrists would probably be fatigued and want to move on.
I’d love for the venal criminality of the current soi dissant administration to be exposed, but do we really want Trump’s name occupying headlines for the next several years? Haven’t we had enough of that for the last four?
My hope is that the Trump corruption/treason headlines will get slightly less coverage than the Biden-oversees-successful-COVID-vaccine-and-has-pandemic-in-retreat headlines. Just to prove to that mushy middle 20% that maybe, just maybe, it does make a difference whom you vote for.
Y’know, it was all exposed in real time and nothing really happened. The inertia to get Trump out of the headlines, along with all of the anti-Biden/DEM clamor that will (is already) coming from the FOX brigade and their ilk will suck up a lot of brain-space oxygen in the new administration.
What I would love to see - A carefully chosen bi-partisan “truth and reconciliation” commission to investigate / prosecute the former administration, top to bottom, side to side. Maybe pull in international people, work really hard to prevent the perception of it just being political score settling. Construct it in such a way that Biden and his DOJ are hands off, so they can go about their regular business without focusing on the Trump. We really don’t need 4 years of this administration just bashing Trump, like he did bashing Obama.
But I don’t see that as likely to happen. The GOP figures in congress would stonewall any attempts, and the usual media suspects would vomit flaming blood 24/7.
I’d like to see FOIA requests on the Trump administration granted almost reflexively by the Biden administration. So much has been buried by this “most transparent” Trump administration. Unleash the Fourth Estate on the Trump Cabinet, and let the chips fall where they may.
