Trump’s America is fast becoming a banana republic

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Large parts of the media are often accused of “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, a type of bewildered disgust with the current occupant of the White House that verges on the pathological and warps perceptions of his actions and ambitions accordingly.

There may be some truth in that judgment, but whatever one might think of where the 47th president is taking his country, and indeed the rest of the world, there is one characteristic that should unite all decently minded people in outrage and condemnation.

This includes widespread allegations of corruption, the use of public office for self-enrichment, and an apparently casual disregard for accepted norms of financial practice and the disclosure of price-sensitive information.

The president seems to have no understanding of the boundaries that are meant to separate public office from private interests. He sees no problem with mixing the two.

Apparent tolerance of this kind of behaviour has reached levels more synonymous with a Third-World banana republic than the mature, law-abiding form of governance the US pretends to represent. In doing so, it threatens to destroy America’s reputation as both a safe haven for international capital and a land of equal opportunity.

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The fact that the dollar’s traditional safe-haven attributes have been notably less evident in the current outbreak of geopolitical hostility is, in no small measure, because the US is no longer trusted as a reliable and dependable player. Perceived corruption at the heart of government is very much part of that story.

The blending of private and public interests was bad enough in Trump’s first presidency, but in his second, all semblance of........

© Brisbane Times