That’s the polar opposite of what I’m saying.
By: Rohan Upadhyay
Tags: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Corruption

That’s the polar opposite of what I’m saying. I’m saying that we have a rotten political system in which most high-ranking politicians are “corrupt.” Trump is corrupt, but many other high-ranking politicians (e.g. past presidents like Obama, Clinton, and ESPECIALLY Bush/Cheney) are NOT much better. That’s a damn shame, and it disappoints me that we have so few genuine voices in our government. I’m not excusing anything about Trump.

Now, what do I mean by “corrupt”? Well, I mostly agree with your definition. I would say a politician is corrupt “if they serve the interests of a select group of people — e.g. wealthy industries that give them money in campaign contributions and lobbying — at the expense of everyone else. The politician does this because it advances their political career — e.g. the funds they collect from their donors help them get reelected or rise to prominence — but they snub the majority of the population.”

If a politician takes money from large donors, then serves those donors and ignores working people or the needs of the world because it helps them politically, then I would label that as corrupt. Trump certainly fits that, but the other politicians I mentioned fit too.

Bill and Hillary Clinton. The Clintons have taken hundreds of millions of dollars from big financial institutions (a.k.a. Wall Street). And what do you know? Bill Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which prevented big banks from making high-risk trades with the money of middle-class people. Bill Clinton’s actions are partially the reason for the financial crisis in 2008 (they’re not the whole story, but he was certainly moving in the wrong direction), as big financial institutions were using the investments of average folks to make very risky trades (with few government regulations). As a result, these risky investments eventually collapsed, crashing the economy and causing millions to lose money. Then, Hillary Clinton supported bailing out Wall Street to the tune of $1 trillion in total. Clinton didn’t support breaking up or reforming these institutions to ensure that this behavior didn’t occur again. Furthermore, there were instances of fraud during the financial crisis (such as companies buying off rating agencies to artificially make their investments look better to buyers), and Clinton didn’t support taking any action to prevent such fraud (such as prosecuting people, for example). We can argue over the details, but that seems corrupt to me. On this topic, Barack Obama also supported this Wall Street bailout, and he didn’t attempt to bring back the Glass-Steagall legislation. Could be because he also takes lost of Wall Street money, so he looks out for his donors.

Here’s another example — foreign policy. The Clintons have a history of taking money from big defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing. At the same time, Clinton supports keeping a large military budget and engaging in wars overseas (she voted for the Iraq war — which was motivated by false information about Saddam Hussein — the war has killed 200,000 civilians so far). This could be because engaging in wars gives the government an excuse to buy weapons from defense contractors — the “military-industrial complex.” The same dynamic goes with Obama, who takes defense contractor money and increased America’s military presence in the middle east.

The reason I disagree with Obama’s and Clinton’s actions is that the US has been in the Middle East for decades now, and nothing has changed. The fight against terrorism doesn’t seem to be working — maybe we need to consider helping these countries rebuild to prevent impoverished people from being radicalized instead of conducting drone strikes that kill civilians (which Obama increased, by the way), causing more tension in the region. Obama’s and Clinton’s actions are detrimental to regional stability and to the lives of our troops — and it happens that they have conflicts of interest in the matter. On top of that, the Clintons have taken millions from the Saudi Arabian government — and at the same time, the Clintons have supported weapons deals with the Saudis (Saudi Arabia uses these weapons to propagate a war in Yemen that has killed lots of civilians — Saudi Arabia even provides weapons to certain terrorist groups that are nominally on their side).

I don’t think I need to go into Bush/Cheney.

In saying all this, I’m not excusing Trump for anything — as you pointed out, he’s clearly corrupt, and it’s unacceptable. But let’s not get it twisted — other mainstream politicians are not that much better. They also take money from large industries and act in ways that help them keep collecting those funds (e.g. to get reelected) even if those actions are at the expense of the American people or the world.

I hope that clears up what I mean.