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Notes -
Politicians are corrupt. In the same way it’s not concerning behavior in a dog to fear the vacuum cleaner but it would be in a person, this kind of stuff just comes with the territory.
Trump is less tasteful, that’s it.
This line of reasoning seems like a bit of a cop-out and/or an excuse to suspend critical thinking. If all pols are secretly crooks, then I don't have to feel bad about supporting the guy who is openly a crook.
'Politicians' are not corrupt. Some politicians are corrupt, and not every corrupt politician is equally corrupt. If I see one guy doing lots of corruption, a second guy doing a little corruption, and another third not doing any corruption, "all three are doing similar amounts of corruption but the latter two are better at hiding it" is not the most parsimonious explanation.
Ok- Trump is somewhat less corrupt but much less tasteful about it than Biden. This does not make it more concerning. And it seems like the case that Trump is more corrupt than a typical presidential-level politician isn’t being made- instead the case being made is that his corruption is executed in ways different from the usual.
That would require some substantiation, especially considering this might be the single most corrupt act by monetary value of any US president, ever.
Even adjusted for inflation?
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It’s fair to call out that the media and the left have poisoned the well of useful conversation and nuance with their hysterics. But at the same time, I’m fucking tired of this fully generalizable hand wave.
This is not even a response, it relies on a series of logical leap that are entirely lazy deflections.
first it requires jumping from the truism that political corruption is inevitable on the whole, to the unfounded conclusion thus any given circumstance its therefore inevitable.
It’s no different than identity politics that jumps from a tenable claim that racism exists, to the ridiculous conclusion that any given scenario must have racism hiding in it, thus justifying any reaction.
It also requires treating all corruption as binary, then voila with a side of what aboutism,
Suddenly any concern about blatent corruption becomes dismissed as aesthetics, nativity, or even argued as actually virtuous since it above the board and therefore some kind of subversive transparency.
At the end of the day this schtick is played out. It’s just the opposite side of the coin as TDS, and just as brain rotted and empty rhetoric
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There are degrees - Trump is in a particularly high-risk group for corruption because he doesn't really seem to believe anything particularly strongly except that he should be President. As OP says, there is no way mainstream Democrat (or moderate Republican) would do this kind of thing without getting an avalanche of shit from their allies as much as their opponents, but because it's Trump his opponents are past the point where his stock can go any lower and his allies would never dare criticise him.
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