TPM EDITORS BLOG: Livin' La Vida Trumpa

[DonViejo]

By JOSH MARSHALL Published SEPTEMBER 29, 2017 9:55 AM

As I tried over the last year or two to understand the world of Trump, one thing I tried hard to get my head around was the stark and often comical pattern of Trump Organization loyalists’ strict public subservience to Trump. They’re not just loyal. Dignity jettisoning protestations and affirmative declarations seem to be part of the deal. What I heard or read again and again is that there’s a pretty clear if perhaps unspoken deal in the Trump universe. If you work for Trump as one of his people – not the thousands who must work for various Trump businesses but the high level, visible retainers – you get to enjoy the lifestyle. But the price is total loyalty, total self-abnegation and whatever loss of dignity is required to serve Trump.

Many people seem to be happy with that bargain.

Every administration has its share of small-bore scandals, profligate spending, and minor corruption. Obama’s was the exception, among both Democratic and Republican administrations. But we’ve seen enough now I think to recognize a distinct problem in the Trump administration. We now have multiple cabinet secretaries using private chartered jets and military jets in what seems to be an unprecedented way. We also have at least two cabinet secretaries having government-funded security details which seem wildly out of proportion to any real threat. (My strong suspicion is they just don’t want to have to deal with protestors or see them.) In so many words, that deal I mentioned from the Trump Organization – give up your dignity and you get to live the lifestyle – seems to have been ported over to the new Trump Organization, what we used to know as the US government.

Perhaps it’s something slightly different. Perhaps it’s as simple as these folks see President Trump’s fairly spendthrift use of government resources for his own use and that’s just setting the tone for everyone else. But of course, Presidents are different. Good or bad, that didn’t start with Trump. I cringe as much as anyone at seeing the President’s constant government financed trips to Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster. But they are his estates. He likes to go to them. And the President basically can’t not spend a lot of money and bring a lot of people basically anywhere he chooses to go. It’s in the nature of the system we have. The hyper-security, the mobile White House apparatus.

I’m not saying it’s okay. But it’s different. When Tom Price takes extremely expensive chartered jets that only the very rich use for private travel, there’s no government justification. It’s just OPM (other people’s money). Who wouldn’t want to take a private jet if someone else is picking up the tab? Betsy DeVos is apparently traveling on a private jet too. But it’s hers. Why shouldn’t Tom Price get to?

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/livin-la-vida-trumpa

[Girard442]

1. Graft is like mildew.

If you don't actively fight it, you end up with it everywhere.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. I think what's happened is they now realise they can get away with it, because Trump voters

allow anything for him and his appointed cronies.

Previously, Bush administration members knew they had to get him re-elected (before 2004), or at least limit the damage to the Republican brand from 2004 to 2008, because they expected either jobs with the next Republican president, or various Republicans in Congress. And they saw keeping somewhere in the realm of basic standards of decency in public office as a significant part of that.

But Trump got elected, despite being a bigoted, misogynistic, cheating con-artist - a reputation he'd had for decades, but which further revelations during the campaign just enhanced, without repelling the Republican base. Hell, they liked him better for it, in many cases. White evangelicals, supposedly concerned with morals, voted for him more than ever.

So they know now they've got a sweet gig - that "I could shoot someone on Fifth Ave. and get away with it" applies to them too, if they keep Trump happy. Ethics violations mean squat to the base, as long as they're punishing the people the bigoted base want punished. So Zinke and Pruitt are safe, as long as they throw the red meat to the hordes who want the damn hippy environmentalists put in their place. As long as Price puts wrenches in the works of Obamacare to teach that uppity Obama a lesson, he'll stay.

Because this regime was elected to screw the enemies of the Republican base. It's the Revenge Presidency. If they manage that, the fuckers will vote for him again.