In many countries around the world, corruption is a huge problem. But pretty much everywhere it happens there's a surface-level denial or attempt to hide it. If you're Putin or Erdogan, for example, you'll have children who get beneficial contracts and there's layers of obfuscation.

So there are three things that are scary about Trump's corruption:

1. It's so brazen and on a scale rarely seen. Apparently he's made $2 billion since coming back into office and he does so openly. Pardons are for sale. Truth Social has a feature to pay to get early access to posts to trade on, basically. There are crypto rug pulls. The list goes on;

2. A third of the population simply doesn't care and will defend it no matter what; and

3. He'll never be held accountable by any future administration. This is the worst part. If this happened in China, he'd go to prison and his assets would be seized. This would extend to his family and their assets. Just look at Hui Ya Kan [1].

The US just does not punish the wealthy. Look at the Sacklers and Purdue. There's clear evidence they hid the fact that Oxycontin was addictive despite their public claims and they have a large amount of responsibility for the opioid crisis. In a just world, they would all die penniless in 6x8 foot grey prison cells. And who went to prison for the 2008 subprime crisis? Oh, that's right. Nobody.

This also extends to the powerful. George W. Bush had an illegal torture program. Who went to prison for it? Only 1 guy: the whistleblower John Kiriakou for talking about it.

The Supreme Court is utterly corrupt. Anthony Kennedy allegedly traded his retirement for a job for his son. John Roberts's wife makes tens of millions in headhunting fees for finding lawyers to argue before teh Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas is just one bribe after another.

The entire government is captured by people who want to get rich by betraying their country to the ultra-wealthy.

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-evergrande-founder...