It’s certainly true that there’s corruption up and down American public life, and not just in campaign finance and lobbying. It also exists in think tanks, corporate governance, pharmaceutical marketing, higher education, the regulatory system, even philanthropy. The extraordinary concentration of wealth in this new Gilded Age, and the tilt of public policy in its favor, is itself evidence of corruption. It’s also true that Mr. Trump is not singular and that versions of his plunder can be found in more banal form across the spectrum of political vice — like the fact that two Republican members of Congress are under indictment.
But we shouldn’t lose sight of the profound differences between the two scenarios above, and all the little corruptions that look more like the first case than the case of President Trump. The compromised behavior of legislators who have limited choices about how to raise money is built into the way we’ve structured elections. “Good people trapped in a bad system,” my old boss, former Senator Bill Bradley, used to say, with perhaps more generosity than was merited.
The key distinction is between systems that invite or encourage corruption — such as by making legislators dependent on donors — and individual acts in which politicians or regulators choose to elevate private interests, or their own, over the public interest. Failing to acknowledge that distinction will make it difficult to build the case against the extreme and unprecedented corruption of Mr. Trump and his allies.
