Corruption Is a Feature, Not a Bug

If you're itching to seize control of institutions for your own corrupt purposes, it's better if people don't trust them anymore.

Photo by wuestenigel

The conservative majority on the Supreme Court hates corruption. More precisely, they hate the fact that there is an idea known as “corruption,” and a general presumption that it’s bad. Turns out too many of us believe that public officials should not engage in self-dealing, use their offices for private advantage, or accept gifts from people who would like those officials to do certain things. In the better world the justices envision, the very idea would cease to exist, and judges or mayors or members of Congress would be free to enjoy the largesse of wealthy patrons without a bunch of do-gooder scolds criticizing them for it. 

They have been working hard to bring that world into being, most recently with a decision they handed down on Wednesday. As repugnant as this pro-corruption project is on its own terms, it connects to something even larger, an anarchic turn in American conservatism. The warriors of today’s right see in nearly every societal institution something they want to either twist into a parodic version of what they claim it has become, or utterly destroy. 

The pro-corruption court

In this latest case, Snyder v. U.S., the plaintiff was a former mayor in Indiana who was prosecuted under a federal anti-bribery law. Seems when he was mayor, Mr. Snyder bought some trucks for the town for $1.1 million from a trucking company, then showed up to the company demanding compensation; they gave him a check for $13,000.

Which seems pretty clearly to be a bribe, and that’s what the jury found. But no, said the six conservatives on the court: This was not a bribe but a “gratuity,” and the statute in question — even though it says that “rewards” for prior acts are illegal — doesn’t actually bar gratuities. If the official takes the money before performing the corrupt act, it’s illegal, but if he takes the money after, it’s all good. Writing for the conservatives, Justice Brett Kavanaugh explained what a gratuity is: “A family gives a holiday tip to the mail carrier. Parents send an end-of-year gift basket to their child’s public school teacher. A college dean gives a college sweatshirt to a city council member who comes to speak at an event.” A sweatshirt or a check for $13,000, it’s all the same. Just a token of thanks for a job well done. 

The court’s conservatives have been on a long crusade to make corruption legal; at every opportunity they’ve found ways to decide that certain kinds of corruption don’t count. They’ve narrowed the definition of it to the point where in order to be convicted, an official would practically have to make a YouTube video saying “Hey constituents, I just accepted a bribe, which I did for purposes of bribery; having taken the bribe, I’m now going to perform official acts in exchange for that bribe!” 

It’s difficult to know precisely whether corruption has become more common as a result. But when you announce that public officials should be able to take shopping sprees from megadonors or accept a $13,000 “gratuity,” you’re sending a pretty clear message to the public about what goes on in government.

Undermining institutions is the point

Here’s part of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent in Snyder:

Officials who use their public positions for private gain threaten the integrity of our most important institutions. Greed makes governments—at every level—less responsive, less efficient, and less trustworthy from the perspective of the communities they serve.

This seems obvious. But here’s the thing: As far as conservatives are concerned, it’s a feature, not a bug.

I can’t say for sure whether the court’s six conservatives are hoping Americans lose faith in government. But I know this: The movement of which they are a part absolutely does. In fact, that is right at the core of contemporary conservatism. It seeks to undermine trust in the courts, in the executive branch, in Congress, in the K-12 education system, in universities, in the military, in the news media, in the election system, in public health agencies, in science — in short, in almost every important institution in American society with just a few exceptions (like the police). And faith in institutions has been falling:

You can’t lay that all at the feet of the right, but they have certainly been doing their part. So how did we get from the conservatism that wanted to conserve — that valued consistency, stability, and the governing institutions of society — to this radical incarnation that wants nothing more than to tear everything down? That’s a complicated question, but the short answer is that as American institutions have grown more liberal, whether in substance or symbolism — which many of them undoubtedly have — the more enraged conservatives became and the more attracted they grew to a principle-free and chaotic view of how those institutions should work.

This is where Donald Trump and his movement enter the picture. The kind of system the court is promoting, where there’s nothing wrong with a mayor taking a $13,000 “gratuity” for sending business a trucking company’s way, is something Donald Trump is not only all in favor of for his own corrupt reasons, but something he wants everyone to accept. As I’ve written before, his argument is never that he isn’t corrupt or guilty of all manner of misdeeds, but that everyone is. 

What emerges out of that idea isn’t just hypocrisy, it’s something much more sinister. For instance, you might be alarmed that conservatives condemn the Biden Justice Department for allegedly targeting Trump for harassment, then quite explicitly say that when they get power they’re going to use the Justice Department to go after Trump’s enemies. The way to make sense of it is that they don’t believe it’s bad for the DoJ to be used as a weapon per se; it’s only bad if it’s done by Democrats. They have no interest in integrity in government institutions, and it doesn’t matter whether the public has faith in them. In fact, it’s better if they don’t, because then they won’t object when Republicans use them in the corrupt ways they falsely accuse Democrats of using them. And Trump will come right out and say it:

“When they start playing with your elections and trying to arrest their political opponent — I can do that too! If I win — which I hope we do because we’re not going to have a country — but if I win, I could then say, I don’t know: ‘This guy, this Democrat’s doing great. I don’t like the poll numbers. Attorney General, come down, arrest that guy, will you, please? Give him a subpoena! Indict him!’ That’s the end of him.”

The response when he says this kind of thing isn’t shock, it’s lusty cheering. And it’s not hypocrisy because Trump doesn’t even pretend that he is motivated by some kind of principle. Distrust of institutions becomes a weapon, one used to increase the sense of chaos that might propel Trump back to the White House. It’s a free-for-all, government can’t protect you, power is all that matters, and the only choice is to get behind a strongman. And whether it’s their intention or not, the conservatives on the Supreme Court are promoting that utterly debased view of government.