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The Trump Kleptocracy
The presidency is officially a cash grab — and a pitstop on the way to autocracy
The convictions of Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen this August shined a light on the type of people Trump chooses to work with. He said he’d employ the “best people”; instead, he employed crooks.
Behind all the outrage, the Manafort and Cohen convictions show that Trump’s government is building an American kleptocracy. The Washington Post has described how kleptocracy, or “rule by thieves,” arises when a country’s elite begin to systematically steal from public funds on a vast scale.
This is where the United States is headed. Trump’s government is powered by people who want to see tax cuts for their own benefit, without a care for the cost to others. This runs from voters backing pro-tax-cut candidates to the upper echelons of the GOP that are complicit in what Fortune magazine is calling “the biggest wealth grab in modern history.”
It is far from the first time a person like Trump has run a country. History may determine it was inevitable that the United States would go the way of countries like Russia, Turkey, China, and many others, electing a leader who could facilitate transferring the country’s wealth to a small number of private individuals. The thing about kleptocracy is that it doesn’t…
