Grift in politics is nothing new, but in the last few years has blossomed into widespread corruption and lies. The biggest flood came from Donald Trump, who during his tenure in the White House told an estimated 30,573 lies (which comes out to over 20 whoppers a day). Trump turned on a spigot of Grift, even overcharging Secret Service agents for hotel stays while they were protecting the first family.
It seems like Trump has normalized these things in the Republican Party. Let’s just pick a few recent examples.
I’m sure everyone has heard about the misdeeds of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who received lavish gifts from billionaire Harlan Crow who Thomas claimed is a “close friend”, except that Crow only became his buddy after Thomas became a Supreme. And the gifts just keep on giving. A new article in the NY Times exposed even more lavish gifts, vacations, parties and more — which were never disclosed. Even worse, another new article in The Guardian has discovered that Thomas accepted money from lawyers who had business before the court. Sheesh!
Another example may not count as grift, but is about money, and is suspiciously close to money laundering and maybe even bribery. The GOP is attempting to limit the number of candidates who can participate in the Republican debates. One of their rules is that candidates must have 40 thousand unique donors, and at least 200 donors in 20 different states or territories. This posed a problem for presidential candidate and North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, who as a billionaire is simply self funding his presidential campaign. In a move that looks a lot like buying an election, anyone who sends him a donation of $1 will receive a $20 gift card. And it worked! Burgum just qualified for the first debate. And he isn’t the only GOP presidential candidate who is trying to buy donations. I guess it helps to be filthy rich to get into this club.
But it isn’t just bigwig politicians who are doing the grift. ProPublica, the same group that broke the news about Judge Thomas, has an article about right-wing websites that scam their readers with phony celebrity stories.
Some of the scams being pulled off by Republican candidates are just stupid. For example, Tim Sheehy is a GOP Senate candidate for Montana. On his website, he touts his support for agriculture in Montana with a photo standing out in a field. There’s just one problem, the photo was taken in Kentucky, nowhere near Montana!
