The past couple of weeks of the news have served up a hefty reminder not just of the deep corruption of Donald Trump, but of the entire Republican Party. On top of the headline-dominating story about Republicans ignoring all sorts of ethical concerns to place Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, there was also
a blockbuster New York Times report showing that Trump amassed his massive fortune not through hard work or business acumen, but old-fashioned tax fraud and corruption. Meanwhile, there's a pileup of stories indicating that Republicans intend to shore up their prospects in the November midterms through blatant and racist cheating, using a series
of Jim Crow-style strategies to
keep black and
Native American voters from the polls in November.
To add to this already disturbing situation, there's the shady behavior Trump is displaying around the
disappearance and likely murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist
who has run afoul of Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and
big buddy of presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner. Saudi Arabia is widely believed to be behind the attack, but Trump —
who himself is overtly hostile to the free press —
seems reluctant to do anything about the situation, citing his unwillingness to spike an arms deal with Saudi Arabia. It's a stance made even more disturbing by the fact that arms deal isn't even real,
but more like a fantasy unlikely to come to fruition. There is also reason to believe that
Trump is personally enriching himself off the Saudi government, which likely factors into his decision-making.
https://www.salon.com/2018/10/12/republican-voters-dont-care-about-trumps-corruption-and-heres-why/