Actions that used to spark outrage and anger have now become business as usual. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a walk down memory lane to review a few incidents that drew public outrage in the past.
Nixon used government agencies like the IRS and FBI to spy on his political enemies. (This is separate from the Watergate scandal.)
Bill and Hillary Clinton were involved in what was later known as a Whitewater scandal which involved their investment of $203,000 in land which would later become vacation properties. The Clintons were eventually cleared of wrongdoing, but the scandal hung over Clinton’s presidency.
Hillary’s private email server while she was Secretary of State became a major controversy because it raised concerns about transparency, national security, and the breaking of federal recordkeeping rules. Investigators found no proof that a foreign hacker or outside breach leaker divulged any classified information from Hillary’s private email server. (Other politicians who have used private email servers in the past for official federal business include Jeb Bush, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Reince Priebus, and Stephen Miller.)
Former President Bill Clinton’s conversation with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on an airport tarmac in Phoenix, Arizona in 2016 sparked outrage amid the ongoing FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. How dare Clinton have the audacity to have even a brief conversation with the current Attorney General when an ongoing investigation was in play!
Republicans were outraged when in 2009 President Obama adapted the existing South Lawn tennis court to double as a basketball court using portable hoops and painted lines. Michele Obama also faced outrage because she started a vegetable garden on the White House lawn which supplied some produce for White House meals and official events. Surplus vegetables were donated to a local soup kitchen.
Merick Garland nominated by Obama in March 2016 did not become a Supreme Court Justice because Senate Republicans led by Mitch McConnell expressed outrage and refused to hold confirmation hearings or a vote on his nomination arguing that the vacancy should be filled after the upcoming election.
In 2014, Hunter Biden was appointed to the Board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian national gas company. Republicans alleged that this appointment created a conflict of interest and that then Vice President Biden stepped in to protect the company. (Official investigations later found no proof of wrongdoing.)
Allegations of a “Biden crime family” occurred when Joe Biden gave his brother an interest-free loan of $200,000 which his brother eventually paid back.
In 2022, Paul Pelosi bought millions of dollars of Nvidia stock options just weeks before Congress voted on a massive $52 billion subsidy bill. Pelosi later sold the stock at a loss amid mounting public pressure.
Republicans were outraged when Biden issued pardons to his family members, public officials like Dr. Fauci and General Mark Milley, and January 6 committee members.
Now let’s take a brief look at some activities that have occurred in the Trump administrations. Also be mindful of their scope and size.
Trump appointed his own personal attorney Todd Blanche as Deputy Attorney General. Blanche used the Department of Justice to oversee investigations and prosecutions of several of Trump’s enemies including James Comey, John Brennan, Cassidy Hutchinson, and many more. Blanche signed an addendum that bars the IRS from conducting tax audits on Trump and his family. Blanche later claimed his anti-weaponization fund to reward January 6th rioters is dead, but experts claim it will be fairly easy to resurrect. Just last weekend, as now the Bonafide Attorney General, Blanche spoke at a Trump rally endorsing Trump’s candidate who is running against the Democratic governor of New York Kathy Hochul. FBI Director Kash Patel also chimed in. So much for the Hatch Act which states that political appointees cannot use their official authority or job influence to interfere with elections.
The Trump boys cofounded the crypto firm World Liberty Financial which launched digital assets and stablecoins. The venture has pulled in millions of dollars.
Jared Kushner’s private equity firm secured a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund shortly after leaving his White House advisory role in Trump’s first term. The fund has continued to grow into hundreds of millions.
The Trump Organization has continued to license the family name for high-end real estate and golf developments in foreign nations such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Gulf states.
The Trump boys have expanded their business portfolios into sectors like drone manufacturing and technology mergers, with certain entities pursuing government and defense-related contracts.
Trump publicly praised or promoted specific companies such as Apple, Nvidia, Micron, and American Eagle on social media or at public events shortly before or after his trust purchased large amounts of stock in those same companies.
In March 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth instigated the “Signalgate” controversy. High-ranking Trump officials used the commercial encrypted messaging app Signal on their personal devices to discuss tactical details and timeliness for military strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen. The scandal broke because Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic has been mistakenly added to the private chat group. During the leak, Hegseth shared specific operational details, timestamps, and target layouts involved in the military strike.
Amy Coney Barrett became a Supreme Court Justice in the final year of Trump’s first term, taking her oath in October 2020, seven months later in the year than Obama’s nomination of Garland. McConnell pushed the nomination through in record speed, apparently forgetting his self-righteous outrage about how the next administration should have the right to select a Justice when Garland’s nomination was in play.
Trump paved over the White house Rose Garden and knocked down the entire East Wing of the White House to build his 90,000-square-foot ballroom without asking for Congressional approval. At this point, the ballroom is expected to cost taxpayers between $300 to $600 million.
In the beginning of his second term, Trump gave a blanket pardon to the roughly 1,500 defendants associated with January 6, along with numerous individual pardons for high-profile white-collar criminals and business executives. Some January 6th defendants have subsequently been arrested for other crimes. Some pardoned white-collar criminals have subsequently invested in Trump’s family businesses. The Trump White House continues to express outrage over Biden pardons.
Flooding the Zone is known as a political strategy that advocates doing a ton of outrageous activities at once so the public doesn’t have the wherewithal to focus on each individual transaction, thereby providing an opportunity to ramrod as much as possible through the pipeline. It also helps to put the size and scope of each transaction on the back burner.
Trump’s signing of 55 executive orders in the first 20 days of his second term is just one example of flooding the zone. The myriads of financial transactions of the Trump family are another. The number of these outrageous transactions has led the public to become desensitized and fatigued. Some voters have simply tuned out the latest new disclosures.
I contend that such desensitization is dangerous. When voters become numb to corruption, public trust collapses, accountability disappears, and such behavior becomes permanent and an accepted norm. It weakens the core foundation of democratic governance. It also can result in public apathy, lower voter turnout, misallocated resources, widening inequality, and normalized dishonesty.
Abraham Lincoln once wrote, “Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision if they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”
It is my sincere hope that American voters do not continue to turn their backs on the goings-on of the current administration. Instead, I hope they “Rise Up” and smell the coffee (inside Eastern Shore joke) before it is too late and get out in droves to vote in November. Our democracy depends on it.
Maria Grant, formerly principal-in-charge of the federal human capital practice of an international consulting firm, now focuses on writing, reading, music, and nature.
4 Responses
Dear Ms. Grant, Thank you for this arresting synthesis and comparison. I wish your piece would be read by the people who drive past my protest signs on Saturday morning, pumping their fists and yelling “Trump! Trump” and telling me I am an idiot. Unfortunately, it is the lack of diversity in their sources of information that means they probably will not. For those having doubts, you are not alone: see http://www.leavingMAGA.org
Funny how Eastern Shore conservatives refuse to acknowledge these practices and events let alone judge them as wrong yet they continually bring up Joe Biden as an evil corrupt man. Our own current Representative supports for any and everything the administration presents, accuses all Democrats of being communists. Hypocrisy at its finest.
In 2014 President Obama actually had the temerity to hold a press conference while wearing a light tan suit. Conservative media figures and Republican politicians went ballistic. They heavily criticized the outfit, calling it “unpresidential”, had a “lack of seriousness”, and that it showed a weak image to global adversaries while world events unfolded. Conservative commentators called the choice shocking. Oh, the pearl clutching. Such is the sophomoric and transparent level of Republican manufactured outrage that puts their reaction to Whitewater, private email servers, and furtive tarmac meetings with the AG in perspective.
Meanwhile, we have the trump crime organization perpetrating massive fraud, participating in self-dealing insider trading, Signalgate, no-bid vanity projects, and quid pro quo presidential pardons all happening in plain sight. And in order to cover his tracks, trump fired or demoted 20 inspectors general, reduced their staff, and slashed their funding in the first six months of his second term. Inspectors general, by law, are tasked with preventing and detecting fraud, waste and abuse related to their agency, while promoting efficiency in agency programs and operations. They are intended by congress to act independently and in a nonpartisan manner. In their place, trump filled the positions with political hacks and sycophants that have the mission to look outside the Trump administration for fraud and wrongdoing. One recent example is the plan to appoint Dennis Kirk as Interior Department inspector general. Mr Kirk was among the authors of Project 2025. His mission: to thwart an internal investigation into the Reflecting Pool fubar.
Jared Huffman (D-CA), the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee has said “They laid out the purge of the civil service and the consolidation of these independent entities within the government under executive power, under direct executive power, and then they called for a second step, which was to repopulate all these positions with Heritage-trained political stooges. It means the purpose is upended totally. You’re not getting a meaningful, independent review of government waste, fraud and abuse. You’re getting another politically weaponized tool for Donald Trump.”
I hope the American people “Rise Up” and smell the stench of Democratic Socialists trying to destroy our Constitutional Republic. They have all these new foot soldiers as a consequence of Biden porous border. Maybe we can all rally around that!!!BTW havent all political figures taken advantage of their position for financial gain…Pelosi and Omar just a tiny snapshot