There are figures in history renowned for their venality, dishonesty and depravity. There have been great prodigies of corruption. The names of Tallyrand and the Borgias come to mind readily enough. Our Great Republic (?) has had its share--Tammany Hall in the time of Bill Tweed was an impressive vehicle for graft. The Teapot Dome scandal is a remarkable example of rot in politics.
But there's sonething about the current batch of degenerates running the country that makes them extraordinary. It's certainly not their intelligence. The squalid figure at their head is no "Napoleon of corruption." He and his lackeys are mere brutes; pigs rooting for truffles or trifles. Selfishness and avarice are a part of them. It's in their nature to be corrupt and to corrupt others.
And that's what makes them unique. Acquiring money and resources through foul means is what they do. Insider trading, the creation of slush funds, acceptance of gifts in return for favors, granting government contracts to friends or contractors in which they hold an equity interest, is as natural to them as belching or farting is to a hobo.
More than that, corruption is to them a matter of pride. They don't try dissimulate their depravity. They flaunt it. It's no surprise that their chief does so in the most tacky, florid way possible, plastering golden gimcrakery over every open space. Grossness is the essence of the corrupt.
It's difficult to imagine how this will end. Periods of excess are sometimes followed by periods of repression, but for that to take place there must be a recognition of what was excessive. Do we still know what's excessive, now?
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