[naasking]

Responses like this are just so bizarre to me. Do you think other Presidents didn't extort other countries for various concessions, even selfish ones that help their political ambitions? Do you think other Presidents were not grifters? Perhaps you should look into Obama's and the Clinton's net worth before and after their presidency.

What really broke people's brains about Trump is that he was openly rude and obnoxious and unapologetic about it, and so didn't hide the self-serving behind a polite facade that preserved the collective fiction that politicians were looking out for the people and not themselves. That's what people both love and hate about him.

[zzzeek]

> Do you think other Presidents didn't extort other countries for various concessions, even selfish ones that help their political ambitions?

illegally withheld US military aid unless the country fabricated a story to help the candidate's campaign? No Democratic president in modern times has done such a thing. Obama had a fully Republican congress for 6 years and they would have impeached him for such a thing. But that didn't happen. Nor for Clinton, who was of course impeached, but not for extorting another country; just for lying about sexual favors. that's the best they could come up with. If either president had some something 1% as evil as what Trump did in just that one incident, we of *course* would have been hearing about it for years.

[voltaireodactyl]

Reagan had Contra, so there’s definitely precedent. I am reluctant to file it under “normal business” though.

[naasking]

I agree it shouldn't be normal, but it unfortunately already is to various degrees, though often in slightly more "subtle" ways, eg. nation building, defense contracts, insider trading, the revolving door of Washington leading to cushy lobbying gigs, speaking tours, etc.

Obama, Cheney and Bush are war criminals under international law and Trump isn't, but boy when Trump is rude to someone, there's no end to the condemnations that he's the worst person ever, despite being the only president of the past 30 or so years who didn't start a war. Even crazier, those war criminals are now all darlings of the Democrats because they trash talked Trump.

Trump and the way the media played on his craziness for ratings really broke people's brains. I wouldn't want that buffoon as president either, but really, get some perspective. He wouldn't be nearly as appealing if politicians weren't almost universally awful and self-serving, but because that's normal and they're "polite" about screwing you over, well that's just fine and dandy.

[voltaireodactyl]

I appreciate you expanding on your point of view. In response to “get some perspective”, I have to say I think I have plenty and that I find a difference of degrees to be a difference all the same.

Which is to say, while I take your point about the relative morality of large scale leadership, having lived through all the folks you mentioned and more, that Trump’s naked pursuit of personal scores with public resources was unprecedented in my lifetime. Society is a shared illusion, presentation matters, and boy did his coarsening of that conversation have far-reaching consequences.