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Do you think Kushner soliciting billions of dollars in Saudi money while Middle East envoy (almost certainly for a word in Trump’s ear) is corruption that deserves to be investigated? Everybody seems to do this.
Damn, that sounds pretty bad. I wonder why no one ever bothered to look into that? Hunter Biden pretty clearly engaged in money laundering and tax evasion in an attempt to conceal earnings from his illegal activities. Did Kushner do that? If so, why has he not been charged?
...On a deeper level, it seems that this topic highlights a salient difference between our perspectives. I do not "trust the system". I am opposed to the "manipulation of procedural outcomes." I am in fact opposed to corruption, but at the moment it seems to me that corruption is best opposed through an adversarial process, not a cooperative one. I think Biden's corruption is best prevented by Republicans prosecuting him. I think Trump's corruption is best prosecuted by Democrats prosecuting him. The Democrats have shot their wad, and have nothing to show for it. Now I want to see the Republicans take a good, honest swing. I am not swayed by arguments that "everyone does it", because I have observed that these appeals to informal "norms" are one of the primary mechanisms by which procedural outcomes are manipulated. If Kushner is corrupt, which I do not particularly believe, Democrats have had ample opportunity to prosecute him and their failure to do so is their own failing. It seems to me that the best path toward low corruption is to enforce the laws fairly but mercilessly against Democrats where my side is able, and trust self-interest to compel Democrats to do the same to my side where they are able. To the extent that corruption has been normalized among our elites, with a common understanding that a blind eye should be turned to bribery and influence-selling, defecting on that understanding seems like an excellent way to break it for good. And since that understanding seems entirely against the public interest, this seems like a good thing to do.
This logic has been a huge part of the value of Trump generally, in my eyes. We all knew the system was corrupt, but no one involved was interested in burning their own meal ticket, and so all involved cooperated in maintaining and concealing the corruption. The solution was to feed the system something it couldn't cooperate with, and this has worked astonishingly well. The system can conceal its corruption and it can suppress attacks on its legitimacy, but it can't do both at the same time while also fighting a war with itself. And so, we see the perceived legitimacy of large parts of the system outright collapsing, and direct attacks on major institutions are now within the Overton window.
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