Like pornography, corruption comes in hard-core and soft-core versions. Donald Trump’s record of self-dealing is the very definition of hard-core corruption. If it were porn, it would only be sold in a brown-paper bag. He should have been impeached long ago for his multiple violations of the public trust.
But many other Washington insiders, both Republicans and Democrats, engage in soft-core corruption, which, despite its “swampy” ethical implications, they take for granted as business as usual, even if voters think it smells.
Hillary Clinton received millions of dollars for speeches from Wall Street banks, multinational corporations and trade groups before she was crowned as the Democratic Presidential nominee for president in 2016. Many of these benefactors were actively involved in lobbying the Federal government. This shows how tone-deaf Democratic Party insiders have been to voters’ revulsion of the swamp.
Washington’s comfort with soft-core corruption may have been the reason Vice President Biden never publicly challenged his son’s decision to take $50,000 a month from a Ukrainian energy company at the same time as President Obama had tasked him with rooting out corruption in the Ukraine.
Let’s be absolutely clear: There’s no evidence whatsoever that Hunter Biden or Vice President Biden committed any crimes. But there’s something “swampy” about this kind of behavior.
And efforts to elevate Biden to the 2020 nomination on the big lie of his “electability” after revelations of Hunter Biden’s activities while his father was Vice President show Democratic insiders are still tone deaf, or bought off by their corporate donors.
The Alternatives To Biden
With so many qualified Democrats running for president, why should the party favor a candidate with even a whiff of scandal to his name, particularly when it relates to the Ukraine, a country central to the key impeachment charge now raised against the president?
Even if it’s clear to those who care about facts that Trump has engaged in massive multiple corruption scandals, while the charges of corruption against the Bidens, even if true, are small potatoes.
But why would Democrats want to spend even a minute during this Presidential campaign defending Biden against corruption charges, when there are plenty of other qualified Democratic candidates without this liability?
The right wing is already trying to grab the reins of this story, and create a false equivalency. As radio host Mark Levin put it to Ed Henry on Fox and Friends, “the question is whether Biden did something illegal. The President didn’t do anything illegal.”