Have you heard about the president who received money from China and other foreign countries? No, not the current president. The former one.

House Republicans recently launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, premised on the claim that he is hiding, in the words of Speaker Mike Johnson, “millions of dollars in payments from America’s foreign adversaries.” As yet, they have produced no evidence to back up the idea that Biden profited. (The payments they have flagged involve the business interests of his son Hunter Biden, who is facing two separate federal indictments at the moment, and his brother James.)

Meanwhile, House Democrats on Thursday released a report detailing how former President Donald Trump received, and then tried to hide, millions in payments from America’s foreign adversaries. Unlike in the impeachment inquiry, which is premised on a suspicion that Republicans hope will turn up evidence, the receipts are here.

The saga of the foreign payments is a good case study in how Trump has taught Americans to tolerate brazen corruption—so long as it’s his. To do this, Trump relies on two tactics. First, he does much of it out in the open, recognizing that voters tend to assume that only hidden deeds are nefarious. Second, he finds ways to slow-walk the release of the most damaging information, so that by the time the full picture is clear, the public has become almost inoculated—as though it had been out in the open all along.

Non-paywall link

  • @CharlesDarwin
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    129 months ago

    You mean he taught the “liberal media” and the cons this. Normal people hate this brazen corruption and want to see it severely punished.

    • BlanketsWithSmallpox
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      09 months ago

      Liberal media… Like the website this article is hosted on? Or CNN covering it regularly? Reuters?

      How would you define liberal media?

      • Lemminary
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        29 months ago

        It’s in quotation marks, it’s most likely tongue in cheek.

        • BlanketsWithSmallpox
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          19 months ago

          I was about to say Whoosh… but I don’t get the first sentence then. Liberal media as in Fox News since even that’s liberal to MAGA now? Cons being conservatives yeah?