“WELCOME TO QATAR-A-LAGO.”
Thus read a sky banner dragged behind a small plane over US president Donald Trump’s Palm Beach resort/home on May 14 as Trump toured the Middle East and spent some media time defending his $3 billion golf resort deal with, and planned acceptance of a $400 million luxury 747 (to use as Air Force One for the remainder of his term, then deed to his presidential library) from, the Qatari regime.
Public furor (to the extent such exists) over Trump’s business ties with, and acceptance of constitutionally prohibited “emoluments” from, the Qataris centers around the notion that what we’re dealing here with is “corruption.”
I disagree.
To “corrupt” a person or thing (per the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary) is to “draw aside from the path of rectitude and duty … debase or render impure by alterations or innovations.”
In order for the Qataris to “corrupt” Trump, he’d necessarily have displayed some semblance of “rectitude” prior to their interactions.
Americans knew that was far from the case before they elected him to the presidency the first time in 2016, and gathered eight more years of demonstration proofs to the contrary before electing him a second time in 2024.
The golf resort deal and the 747 “donation” may be immoral and illegal, but that’s just the story of Trump’s entire adult life in business, entertainment, and politics. There’s nothing honest or dutiful there for the Qataris TO corrupt. They’re just cashing in on his best-known character trait.
Nor is Trump an outlier in American politics.
Mark Twain once noted in Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, “it could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” He should have included the entire political class.
When members of Congress aren’t getting caught with bribe cash in their freezers (William Jefferson of Louisiana) or their boots (Robert Menendez of New Jersey), they’re getting suspiciously wealthy versus their government salaries by e.g. trading stocks affected by the legislation they consider.
When members of the Supreme Court get caught accepting bribes … er, gifts … from billionaires with business before the Court, it’s just a “paperwork error,” but we know better, don’t we?
If there’s a difference between Trump and other politicians, it’s that Trump just smirks his way through the “scandals” instead of denying what he’s up to with anything resembling seeming sincerity.
Are you trying to show contempt for this court?” a judge asked Mae West in her 1927 obscenity trial.
“On the contrary, your honor,” she replied. “I was doin’ my best to conceal it.”
Trump is a modern Mae West minus the entertainment value. We know when he’s lying. He knows we know when he’s lying. His superpower is just not caring.
Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.
PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY