Robert Reich writes:

As George Washington’s biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman, explained, the first president believed he had been entrusted with something of immense intrinsic worth, and that his duty was to uphold it for its own sake and over the long term. He led by moral example.

Few of our subsequent presidents have come close to the example Washington set, but none to date has been as far from that standard as Trump.

In the 2016 presidential campaign, when accused of failing to pay his income taxes, Trump responded “that makes me smart”. His comment conveyed a message to millions of Americans: that paying taxes in full is not an obligation of citizenship.

Trump boasted about giving money to politicians so they would do whatever he wanted. “When they call, I give. And you know what, when I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me.” In other words, it’s perfectly OK for business leaders to pay off politicians, regardless of the effect on our democracy. [Continue reading…]