by Laurence Peterson
I have recently heard at least twice, I can’t remember exactly where, different commentators expressing a sentiment very much like the following: we require nothing short of an entirely new vocabulary to describe the otherworldly corruption of the Trump regime. And events of this past week alone (I am writing on Sunday afternoon, May the 24th, 2026) have indeed provided extensive evidence in favor of at least the spirit of this sentiment. First of all, according to a report filed with a federal ethics agency (according to the Associated Press), Trump engaged in more than 3,600 buy and sell orders in the first quarter of 2026 alone. That is more than all 535 members of the rightly-maligned Congress put together, as Ryan Grim noted. Vice President Vance claimed that all the trades were conducted by presumably independent financial professionals who administered accounts Trump had no direct access to, but analysis made it clear that many of the trades were in companies directly influenced by Trump’s policies, and occurred mere hours, or even minutes, before important policy–including military and national security-related ones–announcements were made by Trump (sometimes on Truth Social), or administration personnel. This renders the veracity of Vance’s statement very problematic, to put it mildly. And then it was reported that Trump’s personal fortune has increased 165% during his time in office in the second term alone. And, finally (there may be more, but I will end the recitation here; this article provides a quite comprehensive list of the most important instances of fraud, double-dealing, insider dealings, conflicts of interest and simple grift that Trump and his family have been involved in during recent years for those who care to stomach more), the week also witnessed the appearance of the most spectacular instance of corruption perhaps imaginable at this level at this time: Trump directed his own Department of Justice (whose head, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, recall, served as Trump’s personal lawyer until assuming the post at Justice) to drop a lawsuit against the IRS Trump had lodged only in January because information from his tax returns (which Trump had promised to make public anyway) had been leaked years before. The leaker was charged and imprisoned, which should have brought an end to the matter altogether, but Trump continued to litigate until a judge appeared close to dismissing the suit because Trump as was essentially suing his own IRS, which is simply absurd. Trump reversed gears and told the DoJ, again run by his former personal lawyer, to settle with the IRS, dropping the damages from $10 billion to $1.8 billion ($1,776 billion to be exact, conspicuously ratifying the frivolity of the claim, perhaps, by making it match the year the United States claimed independence, rather than any plausible claims).
But this is not the end of the preposterous story. Trump announced that the $1.8 billion would be placed in a fund which those with claims judged by a 5 member panel set up by Blanche himself to amount to instances of “weaponization” or “lawfare” could be compensated. Amongst such claimants those who were charged and convicted of assault during the attack on the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, even of police officers (or other offenses, committed after the Capitol assault), were encouraged to apply. So taxpayer-provided funds would be dedicated to pay off people convicted of assaulting police officers; a slush fund for creeps paid for by the public would be the end product of cascading layers of swampy sleaze that characterized the unique expanse of this outrageous process.
Am I finished with the repulsive tale, though? Certainly not. To add the ultimate insult to the almost comically corrupt injury, the settlement included a clause that informs the IRS it is “forever barred from prosecuting or pursuing” examinations of President Trump, his family members and businesses. And there were, needless to say, many, many, many of these. And many, many, many, many more might follow if Trump can ever be driven from office and lose his immunity from prosecution or be properly investigated.
Now I don’t really believe, going back to the question I cited to begin this piece, that the Trump gang’s mega-abuses of what passes for law in this clearly declining land require a different vocabulary of corruption to render their scale and scope to hit home. But the constant psychological strain of being subjected to instances involving blatant offense, ridicule, shame at being taken advantage of with no capacity of redress, even though such things clearly are embodied in law, being taken for fool in the most glaring ways, disgust at the violation of the very most basic norms and customs in society has obviously led to the mass adoption of a kind of learned-helplessness at the very least on the part of many people in this country, and in a very short period of time. The very same man who actively presided over a genocide in Gaza (the methods of which are now being applied in Lebanon by our client–or otherwise–Israel) claims that white South Africans are now facing nothing less than genocide; who, after attacking Venezuela and now Iran when these countries posed no threat whatsoever with us, and without seeking any authorization from Congress, is setting up and speaking openly about the potentially hostile takeover of a non-threatening country our sanctions over 65 years have rendered more-or-less uninhabitable, Cuba, again without meaningful Congressional input; who ignores court decisions on a daily basis; and, finally for now, whose minions and toadies in Congress delay and cancel votes when the outrages become so many and so egregious that even MAGA republicans begin to defect from the death cult; taking in all of this has resulted in many refusing to watch the news, becoming divorced from public affairs due to an utter disgust for politics, one which can go beyond that even to some degree of self-segregation from other people. The fact that so many voters chose Trump because they thought he would not–or would not be able to–effect change of any significant sort, of a sort that would result in the infliction of dire harm on vast multitudes of people makes it clear that the true Trump derangement syndrome consists of the belief that this President, his absurdly incompetent and corrupt cabinet members, his judicial sycophants, his toadies in Congress, essentially silent Democrat leaders, and, perhaps above all, his donors can or will not do historic harm to a country that has, under the increasing control of many of these bad actors, guaranteed precisely that. All these actors and the forces structuring the phenomena that have caused the decline we see everywhere in front of us must be resisted and removed immediately. Every one of us must do everything possible to ensure this happens. The words are more than adequate here.