[nck4222]

This has been painfully obvious for the duration of this administration, nevermind just recently.

The danger is that at some point an administration would be so adept at this that it's not painfully obvious. In theory, at the very least the electorate is informed enough at this point that they can consider this information when voting. Admittedly, that's pretty optimistic take on the US electorate however. An educated, well informed public is necessary for a successful democracy, and America's problems with education are well documented.

[noad]

The dawning realization that there are very little to no checks or balances on the executive branch has not led to calls for reform, it has not led to calls to ratchet back power in the executive branch at all.

Just the opposite, it seems like both Democrats and Republicans top priority seems to be seizing and expanding their own power. Nothing else matters, they just want this newfound freedom to operate in the margins for themselves. All the messaging is about how the other side is evil and THIS election is the most important of our lifetimes, you absolutely have to vote for our team and not the truly evil other team.

The first competent authoritarian demagogue is going to do much more damage than this administration. Nobody seems to care at all about the side effects, they just want their team to stay in power or get back in power.

[paulryanrogers]

There have been some calls to break up the status quo over the years; such as with campaign finance reform, same day primaries, term limits, etc.

Not everyone is totally drunk on power since Romney crossed over to convict and Democrats have critized Obama.

[ta1234567890]

Sounds very similar to the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" theory of why non-millionaires let millionaires do pretty much whatever, except in this case it would be "temporarily embarrassed party in power".

[scarmig]

A cold comfort is that there's no real selective pressure to become more adept at it: fool at least half the population (for certain values of half) most of the time, and you don't need anything else.

In some ways, it being grotesque is part of the appeal. Being subtle about it takes away the domination politics aspect of it, and what's the point of politics if it's not to hear the wailing of your enemies underfoot?

[mc32]

Aha! You’re presuming people have a choice between “dirty» and “clean». It’s a lot more muddied than that and people will weigh their priorities accordingly and cast their votes.

[Accujack]

Right. The silver lining of having the administration we have at present is that they're so inept at being corrupt.

I speculate that previous administrations have been just as corrupt, but much better at hiding it.

[djaque]

> I speculate that previous administrations have been just as corrupt, but much better at hiding it.

This is just the perennial "both sides" argument and I don't buy it. The excuse is that "everybody does it and so we need to cheat to keep up at all" and although I'm sure president Trump believes it's true, it's just another example of the distorted reality of the current administration.

There is major republican control over all three branches of government and the president isn't actually inept, but look at how hard it is for him to get away with blatant corruption. The fact of the matter is that (at least for now) there are apolitical people in government who are willing to stand up to abuse of power and they typically do so. There's enough of them that I don't believe in some conspiracy that "all politicians have been committing crimes and everybody know it". That's just a political argument with no grounding.

tl;dr The number of abuses of power from the current administration isn't because they're worse at hiding it. It's because the president cheats more and has been doing it his entire life even before the presidency.

[mercer]

Nothing in your comment argues against the claim that all (both) parties are irredeemably corrupt though. You're just arguing that Trump is worse.

I do agree with the latter statement, but I completely understand why so many people just went 'fuck it' and voted for him. The Democrats are a nasty bunch too.

EDIT: if you're on a sinking ship, and one party argues in favor of arranging the deck chairs in a certain way and tut-tuts about suboptimal ways, and another party says (or is forced to say) "fuck it, arranging deck chairs is stupid.", would you not agree with the latter? Of course it's unfortunate when this is followed up with "let us buy new expensive deck chairs from this friend of mine", but that's not an issue when the media focuses on the arrangement of deck chairs.

[djaque]

I also feel trapped between two bad choices. My point wasn't that the political left is a shining example of purity. It was that the corruption of the current administration so far exceeds anything that came before that saying "well the other side does all of this too" is dishonest. It sounds like we agree on that.

What we disagree on is how we get out of it and and after four years of "burn the ship down" politics, what I've learned is that I'm one of the idiots on the ship. I'm told that the economy is doing well, but I've only seen tax breaks for the richest Americans and my wallet doesn't feel any heavier. My friend's small business was denied a PPE loan during the ongoing financial crisis while Trump's friends are able to get them without an issue. My feeling is that the current party might be saying "arranging deck chairs is stupid", but they're going behind my back anyways and arranging them for their friends and political allies.