On the eve of corruption
by Tom Sullivan
Corruption is on the rise in the United States. Or perhaps, it is revealed. Every day now. The college admissions scandal and the United States’ downgrading to “country to watch” status by Transparency International prompted a recent examination of our culture in these pages, if not in our mirrors. MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent, Ari Melber, outlined this week how Donald Trump’s administration now has “the highest rate of indictments for his aides than any president ever.”
Stephen M. Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard University, considers the corruption of the Trump administration in a post for Foreign Policy, but begins by adding to the short list above.
The 2008 financial crisis and the Boeing 737 Max grounding are further evidence of a culture where corruption has taken hold. We never held accountable the “masters of the universe” who defrauded the planet and cratered the economy. While the cause of recent crashes are still under investigation, it seems Boeing’s cozy relationship with Federal Aviation Administration regulators allowed it to self-certify it airworthy and rush the plane to market. The world saw a conflict of interest when the U.S. was the last major country to ground it. Walt observes, “Ethiopian authorities chose to send the black boxes for analysis in France rather than in the United States.”
Sexual predation in the Catholic Church, sexual assault in the military and military procurement scandals, and a Trump White House suffused with villains, thieves, and scoundrels (Walt provides an abbreviated summary) is more than a moral and ethical crisis, but a foreign policy one for the United States, Walt believes. Besides creating economic inefficiencies as money get misdirected to bribes, kickbacks and unqualified elites, the widening “swamp” far beyond the Beltway undermines our economic and political influence:
Corruption and other forms of elite malfeasance also nourish populist anger. When elites go to great lengths to game the system and are increasingly seen as out of touch and unaccountable, it is hardly surprising that ordinary people who have been playing by the rules become so angry that they will put their faith in anyone who promises to shake up the system. Such sentiments help explain the otherwise surprising popularity of a candidate like Bernie Sanders or the rapid rise of straight-talking politicians like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ironically, it also played a key role in Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, which proved that if you can fake integrity, you’ve got it made.
Over the longer term, rising corruption threatens America’s soft power, and especially its reputation for competence. Other countries are more likely to follow America’s lead when they believe the core institutions of U.S. society are run by people who know what they are doing, and when foreign governments have confidence that the information provided by U.S. officials is accurate. But when grifters rule the roost and privileged elites use their current positions to hog even more for themselves, their offspring, and their cronies, our core institutions will function poorly and other states will lose confidence in our ability to deliver as promised.
That cow is already out of the milking shed. The sitting president’s last summit with the North Korean dictator was a disaster. Europe has all but written off the U.S. A top German politician wants Donald Trump’s ambassador expelled for interfering in Germany’s internal affairs. German politicians have demanded Richard Grenell’s recall since he told Breitbart last June he wanted “to empower other conservatives throughout Europe” to rise up against “elites.” Grenell had not been there a month.
Complicating matters is Trump’s lack of acknowledging foreign policy involves trade-offs between our values and our interests, admits William J. Burns in an interview with The New Yorker. A career diplomat, Burns describes Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a combustible combination of grievance and ambition and insecurity” in a way that sounds like a veiled reference to one of Putin’s biggest fans. The danger Trump poses is in believing “that somehow you can endear yourself to [autocrats] by dumping on your political enemies publicly abroad, and that somehow ingratiating yourself with authoritarian leaders will enable you to have more effective policies and promote American interests.”
Then again, our own combustible combination of grievance and ambition and insecurity is too busy pursuing his own corrupt interests to care about America’s.