Paul Krugman Says Trump is a Horror but a Horror Made Possible by GOP Corruption

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:59 pm

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In a series of tweets today, Paul Krugman tackled Republican reluctance to hold Trump accountable for the Flynn scandal, explaining that while “Trump is terrible” his is a “horror made possible by GOP corruption and lack of conscience.”

Worth thinking about the reasons Rs in Congress won’t hold Trump accountable unless there’s an obvious wave election looming. First of all, they’re all apparatchiks — certainly in the House. Every one of them works for the big money, and knows it. And what the big money wants is tax cuts and deregulation; it will forgive anything if it gets those. But what about the voters? Here a polarized electorate means that the vast majority of Rs face no contest in general election; their voters get their news from Fox. And in primaries, with a smaller, older, more racist electorate, the threat is always from the right. So no reason to challenge Trump…The point is that the sickness runs deep; Trump is horrible, but a horror made possible by GOP corruption and lack of conscience.

“The only thing,” he concluded, “that might move them is such massive public outrage that even safe seats might be lost. The founders wept.”

To public outrage might be added a press refusing to let matters rest where they are, a promise earlier made by CNN.

In other words, as Krugman pointed out earlier, “Treason versus tax cuts — not a hard choice, it seems.”

Obviously, a Republican-controlled Congress sympathetic to Trump’s pro-Wall Street and corporate policies will be willing to overlook much to get what they want, even treason, for as Krugman says, “Treason in the defense of tax cuts is no vice” for Republicans.

Trump, quite clearly, is the embodiment of a much deeper malaise afflicting the Republican Party. As has been pointed out many times before, both here and elsewhere, Donald Trump did not make the Republican Party what it is. Rather, he saw this same corruption and harnessed it to his megalomania.

As Paul Krugman has made clear, the American people have a hard fight ahead of them because they are fighting against not just Trump, but a deep-seated and systemic corruption buoyed by a man who has just let the swamp he promised to drain flood Capitol Hill.

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.