Allow me to opine a bit about corruption as it exists in the current political context.
Government
waste, fraud, and abuse is about as ubiquitous as stink on a hog. We
all know that. But it takes character to stand against it, and the
strength of will to take the incoming flak one will inevitably encounter when
rooting it out from the entrenched
bureaucracy, what is often referred to as 'deep state', the 'swamp', or the 4th branch of
government.
Enter President Trump. Playing the tripartite role of master strategist, troll, and wrecking ball, he
enlisted the help of Elon Musk and some of the most brilliant young
people in Musk's organization. Within days, they descended like avenging
angels to expose and root out the corruption.
And
did they find corruption! As Matthew Hennessey wrote in a recent Wall
Street Journal editorial, "Even Ronald Reagan, the great apostle of
smaller government, couldn’t achieve in eight years what Mr. Musk has
done in 3½ weeks." *
In
a sane universe, these guys would be welcomed as heroes - from the
left, right, and center. But as we've seen in the present cynical
political climate, normalcy and common sense - especially from the party
of the far left - has become increasingly less common.
So,
what was the response of the political left? It was as if they all
got free tickets to ride the Crazy Train - or perhaps more accurately -
they simply feared their train was about to run out of gravy.
Forced
into the unenviable position of choosing between defending government
waste, fraud, and abuse - or - losing their most important source of
power - the enduring, deep state bureaucracy, Democrats have sided with
waste, fraud, and abuse and against the taxpayer. As Reince Priebus so succinctly put it on a network news show recently: "Democrats have found themselves on the
wrong side of normal." (ABC News’ “This Week” - 02/16/25)
I
suppose one could hope that Democrats could eventually be counted on to
do the right thing. "...once all other possibilities have been
exhausted.” (to paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill) But to hold that view
would be to live in the past. That's the Democrat party of 50 years
ago. That's your grandfather's Democrat party, not this one.
In
one of the few times since the end of the Reagan presidency, Trump's
brand of conservative populism has the Democrat's backs up against the
wall, as their traditional constituencies abandon them. Cornered to the
point of facing complete political irrelevance, they still refuse to
abandon their radicalism or even cosmetically reinvent themselves. And what's worse (for
them), their old playbook which served them well for so many decades,
is no longer working.
To clarify, the old
Democrat party playbook of class warfare, racial division, and name
calling simply no longer resonates with the electorate. Their radical,
discredited, and unpopular agenda has been categorically rejected by
thinking persons. And now, with Elon Musk and his band of boy geniuses
starting to expose the depth and breadth of their corrupt sources of
power, they are losing control of the deep state-saturated institutions
that have propped them up even when they were not in power.
The left's desperation is palpable. You can see it illustrated in their
hilarious antics: starting with Chuck Schumer's poorly scripted
pre-SuperBowl Corona and avocado stunt, then it was Maxine Waters' January
6th-like mob which unsuccessfully stormed the gates of the Dept of
Education, Ocasio-Cortez's webinars coaching criminal aliens how to
avoid arrest, or finally, Jasmine Crockett's voicing the quiet part out loud when
she proclaimed last week that she was rooting for Canada
and Mexico over her own country.
If they
continue on the present course, they will be well on their way to making
the term "Democrat" just another synonym for "corruption." But then again, we
probably shouldn't be surprised that the Democrat party would be on the
side of corruption.
We just lived through 4
years of what is arguably the most lawless and corrupt regime in US
history. It was so corrupt that Biden shuffled out the door having to pardon practically his
entire family to keep them out of jail - for influence paddling, tax
evasion, foreign espionage violations, and gun crimes. (Even Nixon
didn't pardon his family and co-conspirators.) Biden went on to pardon
his confidants and members of Nancy Pelosi's kangaroo impeachment
Court. On top of that, he incomprehensibly, and likely
unwittingly, granted commutations to a convicted killer of FBI agents,
mass murderers, and even a child killer.
During the
Biden regime, we saw the emergence of lawfare, politicizing the Justice
Department to persecute his political opponents, the Catholic church,
and parents, the abandonment of U.S. hostages in Gaza, giving FEMA funds to illegal aliens, and the surrender of the
southern border to the Mexican cartels.
We saw frontal assaults on the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 10th amendments, fully supported by Congressional Democrats.
We
saw our 'Mr. Magoo-like' President, stumbling and bumbling from one
national security disaster, assault on our freedom, or public relations
gaffe to the next. He mumbled incomprehensibly, shook hands with
imaginary friends, fell asleep in meetings with international leaders,
and needed help finding his way from the podium or off the stage. Then this
would be followed up by a prevaricating presidential press secretary
telling us we shouldn't believe our lying eyes or listen to our lying
ears about his sad mental and physical decline.
So don't expect a mea culpa.
Don't anticipate any apologies. Don't expect token course corrections -
much less a policy reversal. Especially don't expect sincere soul-searching when their much cherished source of corruption is threatened. It is far more likely that they will
continue down the same failed, but familiar, path - to lie, cheat, and
steal to protect their waste, fraud, and abuse.
* https://www.wsj.com/opinion/democrats-ought-to-love-doge-big-government-cleanup-efficiency-policy-5a87dd80
