Trump’s clumsy corruption painful to watch

Is it asking too much of our current administration that its corruption be at least competent? Nothing is more disheartening than unimaginative and clumsy corruption. It smacks of insolence and it insults our intelligence.

Corruption in the hands of skilled practitioners is wrong but fascinating, usually discovered after the fact. Incompetent corruption is also wrong but additionally just plain annoying. It lacks imagination and subtlety and is often discovered as it is occurring. Compare the crooks in “Ocean’s Eleven” with the crooks in “Fargo.”

Artful corruption depends on lies, which require a good memory and disciplined coordination with fellow liars. The current administration doesn’t have a good memory and certainly isn’t disciplined. Befuddled spokespeople come and go speaking smilingly of the moment’s alternative facts.

Most of the press, roused from its customary moral torpor, is finally discovering this corruption, all that is, save Fox News, which remains the best political sit-com since Archie Bunker retired.

Aristotle warned, “Democracies are most commonly corrupted by the insolence of demagogues.” Incompetent corruption is insolence squared.

Corruption will always be with us; it is part of our Edenic inheritance. But four years of incompetent corruption? Please spare us. The rest of the world is laughing at the amateurishness of it all — they expect better of the United States of America.

We anxiously await the ascension of our pardoned president, as he rides the golden escalator back up into his dark tower, leaving behind the rubble of a once-proud party.

This story was originally published May 22, 2017 at 11:37 PM with the headline "Trump’s clumsy corruption painful to watch."