America’s Moral Rot in the Age of Trumpism and How to Reverse It

Police apologists are often quick to minimize revelations of corruption and misconduct by law enforcement as “just a few bad apples.” But the whole point of that adage is that a single bad apple can ruin all the other apples in the barrel. For the last 11 years and counting America has seen one of its two major political parties, its federal government, and much of the rest of society infested by a very large and very rotten spray-tanned apple. And the rot has spread far and wide. 

JD Vance, Trump’s Vice president, was nice enough to unintentionally highlight the extent of the problem when he said one of the quiet parts out loud in June during an interview promoting his book. “If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story,” he remarked. He went on to paint “the deep state” as the real villains of Watergate—comments that between 1974 and 2014 could have been a weeks-long, career-ending scandal. But Vance is right. The Trump administration engages on a daily basis in corruption and lawlessness that make Watergate look trivial by comparison. 

As many of his obituary writers have noted, the life of Lindsey Graham provides a particularly stark illustration of Trump’s corrupting influence on those around him. Graham famously spent the summer of 2016, after it was clear Trump would be the Republican nominee but before he’d won the general election, lambasting him in devastatingly honest terms as, “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” among other things. In May of 2016, Graham famously tweeted, “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it.” 

And yet, as Will Saletan documented in great detail in his superb podcast on the subject for The Bulwark, once Trump won the general election, Graham swallowed his pride and, eventually, abandoned most of the principles he once had and went to work flattering and ingratiating himself with that “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.” Graham’s motives were likely complex, and Saletan convincingly argues that, unlike some others, Graham seems not to have been totally devoid of principles. Instead, he convinced himself that becoming a Trump toady and defending his many increasingly egregious crimes and outrages was the price of retaining influence over the foreign policy issues that had long been Graham’s main interests in the Senate. Still, it would be childish to pretend the love of power didn’t play a major part in Graham’s decision to become a lickspittle for Trump.

In any event, even the most charitable analysis would have to acknowledge that although he was sometimes a valuable advocate for democracy abroad, Graham aided and abetted enormous damage to democracy and the rule of law in his own country—going so far as defending and minimizing Trump’s violent coup attempt on January 6, 2021 and endorsing and campaigning for Trump in 2024. “They’re prosecuting him for activity around January the sixth. He didn’t break into the Capitol. He gave a fiery speech, but he’s not the first guy to ever do that,” Graham said in late 2023, after having initially condemned the January 6th attack and seemingly abandoned Trump in its immediate aftermath, saying at the time “count me out, enough is enough.” 

Graham is thus a tragic figure whose life is a kind of 21st-century morality tale about the seduction of power calling to mind nothing so much as Tolkein’s Gollum—a character whose lust for power turned him into a monster. Unfortunately for the United States and the world, Graham is far from unique in this trajectory. Trump’s career has demonstrated time and again that he has a remarkable ability to corrupt those around him. To take only the most obvious of many, many, many examples—seriously, there are so many examples—of the 207 Republicans in the House of Representatives at the time, only 10 voted to impeach Trump for inciting a mob to assault police and violently storm the Capitol just days before. Similarly, of the 50 Republicans in the Senate at the time, only seven voted to convict him, despite being handed a golden opportunity to end his political career and his influence in their party, to say nothing of a chance to do the right thing and salvage a bit of self-respect. 

In the latest illustration of Trump’s ability to turn otherwise normal Republicans into simpering accomplices, obediently helping him aim while he urinates on our Constitution and the rule of law from a great height, Senators Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn, and Thom Tillis all voted to confirm Trump’s appointee as Attorney General, Todd Blanche. Cassidy and Cornyn already lost to Trump-backed primary challengers and Tillis is retiring at least partly to avoid facing one. So you might think they would have little to no incentive to do Trump’s bidding. And Blanche is no ordinary Attorney General nominee. Indeed, rich as American history is in corrupt politicians, Blanche and Trump’s first AG this term, Pam Bondi, are the biggest crooks to ever head the Justice Department. And this includes Robert Bork, who famously agreed to follow Nixon’s corrupt order to fire the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate break in. 

In his time as acting Attorney General, Blanche—Trump’s erstwhile criminal defense attorney in several of his pre-2025 felony indictments—“negotiated” a lawsuit settlement in which Trump in his private capacity sued the government he heads demanding both immunity from all future tax audits for himself and his family and a $1.8 billion “compensation” slush fund to dole out to his allies and accomplices who were supposedly wronged by the IRS. The deal is so flagrantly corrupt it has, for now, been halted by a federal judge. One almost has to admire the brass required to even think up such a thing. Almost. 

Younger readers may not believe it, but before 2016, senators of both parties regularly behaved like an independent branch of government rather than potted plants. They regularly torpedoed cabinet nominations for far, far less egregious offenses.

What is it then about this bloviating demagogue and self-professed sexual predator that gives him such sway over ostensibly serious people? The most obvious explanation, and the one most often cited is the hold he has over a large portion of the Republican base. Even amidst a failed war that’s about as popular as herpes, self-inflicted inflation, and historically low overall approval numbers, Trump retains an 82% job approval rating among self-described Republicans. This explanation certainly accounts for a great deal of Trump’s corrupting power. Of the seven noble Republican dissenters in the Senate who voted to convict and remove Trump in his 2021 impeachment, four either lost to Trump-backed primary challengers or retired rather than face them. A fifth died in office before the same fate could befall him. On the House side, only Dan Newhouse and David Valadao among the 10 Republicans who voted for impeachment have retained their seats. Given that nearly every politician’s top priority is to get reelected, Trump’s hold over the Republican base is a powerful tool in corrupting Republican elected officials.

Trump’s coercive power and appetite for vengeance are hardly limited to Republican politicians though. Heroic ordinary citizens and former employees who have dared to stand up to Trump like Alexander Vindman, Fiona Hill, and Liz Oyer have had their careers in government service ended. In Vindman’s case, his brother was also fired for good measure. Other Trump opponents have faced waves of death threats from his followers. 

Still others like former FBI Director James Comey, former New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz have been or are being subjected to transparently baseless and vengeful legal harassment by Blanche and Trump’s other lackeys at the Department of Justice. The non-profit organization Protect Democracy is tracking a total of 33 arrests, investigations, and prosecutions that it classifies as vengeful. Of the 21 of these cases that have been adjudicated, 20 have failed with many not even making it past a grand jury. But these victories, while important, are hardly total. As the defense attorney Ken White often points out, the process itself is the punishment. Being under criminal investigation by the federal government is an extremely unpleasant, financially costly experience. Wealthy individuals and high-profile politicians may be able to weather such a storm, but the goal is both to punish the targets and to make ordinary, less-wealthy, less-famous people think twice before standing up to the Dear Leader, lest they have their life upended by the—at this point ironically named—Department of Justice.  

Clearly then, the first step in rolling back the tidal wave of corruption that this career ripoff artist and his enablers have unleashed is to take away their political power. On this front, there are some reasons for optimism. The recent victories of pro-democracy forces in Hungary and Poland against much more entrenched far-right authoritarian regimes are also cause for optimism for friends of freedom and the rule of law. 

But there is another dynamic at play as well. Over and over scholars have found evidence that corruption, like courage, is contagious. When people see others violating laws and rules and not only getting away with it, but enjoying huge rewards for it, it establishes a social norm that breaking the law is common and acceptable. In fact, you would be a sucker and a weirdo not to flout the law. 

Like any other behavior, the more exposure someone has to corruption, the more likely they are to normalize it, consider it acceptable, and engage in it themselves. By getting away with so many outrageous violations of norms, rules, and laws, again and again in broad daylight, Trump has effectively torched a great many norms against illegal and despicable behavior among Republicans and, to some degree, among Americans in general. 

Rebuilding these norms will require more than Trump and his party losing elections. With corruption in particular and with criminality in general, research has consistently found that one of the most important factors in deterring would-be crooks is the perceived likelihood of being caught and punished. Given that Trump will almost certainly issue blanket federal pardons for himself and many of his supporters—he’s already pardoned over 1,500 of his allies, including all those convicted of attacking the Capitol in his violent coup attempt on January 6, 2021—much of the vital work of investigating and prosecuting their myriad crimes will necessarily fall to state and local prosecutors. In a few cases, this has already started, with prosecutors in Minnesota charging one ICE Agent with assault for pointing his gun at motorists and another in the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in his home. Other ICE agents are being investigated by state and local authorities in the fatal shootings of Sebastián Durán Guerrero and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. At a minimum, hundreds more investigations will be required to restore any semblance of the rule of law to America though and much of it can and must be done by a Democratic Congress and a rebuilt Department of Justice. 

But even widespread prosecutions won’t be enough. In a series of cases going back to Citizens United in 2010, the lawless Republican hacks on the Supreme Court have effectively legalized bribing politicians, most recently declaring that “gratuities” paid to an official for past favors are kosher. This is less surprising but no less damaging in light of the fact that one of the justices, Clarence Thomas, is himself the recipient of millions of dollars of bribes from billionaires with business before the court. Together with their infamous ruling in the appropriately named Trump v. United States, which effectively declared Republican* presidents to be immune from prosecution for whatever the justices choose to consider “official acts,” the Roberts Court has done its level best to turn the United States into a lawless oligarchy where officials who are meant to serve the public are instead bought and paid for by billionaires and equality before the law is a cruel joke. 

In light of this and the Roberts Court’s many other outrages, any successful campaign to restore the rule of law and basic norms against corruption will also require major court reform. Thankfully, this can be accomplished by a Democratic Congress and president via statutes, without the need for Constitutional amendments. Congress can and must expand the court with new pro-democracy, anti-corruption justices. Incidentally, the lower courts are also in need of significant reforms. Congress has the power to abolish circuit and district courts and create new ones, and it should use that power, both to protect the Constitution and rule of law and to lower caseloads for lower-court judges. Supporting major court reform of this kind needs to be the minimum price of entry for all Democratic candidates for Congress and the White House. Accept nothing less. 

Conveniently, a fire-and-brimstone anti-corruption campaign, in addition to being essential to saving the republic, is also good politics. It can readily be tied to the economic messages Democratic politicians and consultants are so fond of. “While you’re struggling with inflation from their insane war and tariffs, they’re getting rich with corrupt deals, pardoning their friends and family, and covering up the Epstein files” would play well pretty much everywhere. The political salience of corruption is not lost on the new generation of young and talented Democratic politicians. Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff and Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, among others, frequently tie Republican corruption to voters’ economic concerns in their stump speeches and ads. 

There is, moreover, reason to hope the United States will follow the lead of countries like Poland, Hungary, and Brazil in rejecting authoritarianism and corruption and rebuilding the rule of law.

*Democratic presidents would not get the same protections from the Roberts Court for their own hypothetical criming, as, conveniently, the six Republican justices would be the ones deciding what’s an official act and what’s not. 

Featured Image is Where is the difference? by Louis Dalrymple