Corruption. From the Latin corrumpere, which meant “to destroy, spoil, ruin, break to pieces” — and by extension, “to seduce or bribe.” When we say “corruption,” we of course think of things like graft, bribery, ill-gotten gains, misuse of power; we also think of the rotting of organic matter, the inevitable return of living matter to dust.

I tried to begin this post with a list of Donald Trump’s corrupt activities in this term and his first — but the list would take up far more space than is reasonable. If you’re interested, here is ChatGPT’s response to my request that it give an overview of accusations. This is a very high level summary — but the upshot is that in many ways, the $2.2B he and his family have raked in since January 2025, a mere 18 months ago, is only the tip of a very large iceberg. Through rank misuse of power, insider dealing of all sorts, bribery of friends and foes alike to line his coffers in order to get what they want, he has thoroughly monetized the American presidency.  Moreover, if we follow the Latin, through seduction and bribery he has corrupted — rotted — the American government.

And the thing is, Trump’s corruption is sui generis. We have truly not seen the like before; we have not seen this kind of rotting and decay at the very head before.

To be sure there have been significant corruptions of presidential administrations in the past. Prominent with respect to fiduciary corruption — graft — the administrations of Ulysses S. Grant and Warren G. Harding typically top the list. With respect to abuse of power, it’s hard to surpass Richard Nixon — until now.

In the Grant and Harding cases, the corruption did not extend from the very top, down. In the Grant Administration, the Whiskey Ring Scandal involved a nationwide conspiracy of distillers, distributors, and Treasury officials to steal millions by evading federal liquor taxes; the Indian Ring Scandal saw Interior Department officials and traders overcharging Native American agencies and diverting government supplies intended for tribes. All despicable. But Grant himself, scholars widely agree, may have been guilty of poor judgment in appointments and of inattentiveness to things going on around him, but he himself was never implicated, and as suspicions emerged, he aggressively pursued investigations. 

In the Harding Administration, similarly, the corruption swirled around the White House, but there is little evidence that Harding himself personally benefitted or played an active role. The most infamous scandal, Teapot Dome, involved the Secretary of the Interior awarding non-bid contracts (sound familiar?) in exchange for kickbacks. Again, Harding’s unsound judgment, poor leadership, and ineffective management were key — but the rot did not, as far as has been determined, extend to the president himself and was not driven by him. Harding died in office, but his successor, Calvin Coolidge, pursued investigations of Teapot Dome and other scandals.

Nixon is a different story; he was himself intent on maintaining power, as became clear after the Watergate hearings asked again and again, “What did the President know and when did he know it?” What initially might have looked like some political operatives going rogue was ultimately shown to have its roots with the president himself, despite his efforts to maintain “plausible deniability.” Even at that, though, Nixon’s motive was not pecuniary; his offense was not graft but the abuse of the power of the presidency. And even at that — not to defend Nixon, but simply to make the comparison — he did not come close to warping the policies and actions of the United States to the degree that Trump has, even for his own political gain. Just imagine how Trump might have handled the rapprochement with China, in comparison with Nixon.

No, Trump stands on his own. He gives us every form of corruption. Specifically, he gives us two forms of Constitutional corruption: (1) the pecuniary corruption against which the emoluments clauses are explicitly directed (see this fine overview of the clauses by the Brennan Center), and (2) the corruption entailed by his unwillingness to uphold his oath to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States” and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” 

And he initiates this corruption himself, for his own gain — political, legal, and monetary. 

But, it is even worse than that: Trump sought the presidency for the purpose of his own gain and he utilizes the office as his right and means to obtain that gain. In Trump 1.0, he was held in check to some extent; he has made sure that did not happen in this term. 

And of course, we should not be surprised, because corruption has always been Trump’s mode of doing business, following in his father’s footsteps. Lie, cheat, steal and destroy anything that stands in your way. When called to account in the courts or elsewhere, delay, delay, delay through any means necessary.

When the media dress this up as Trump’s “transactional approach” to everything, they do us a great disservice — perhaps yet more evidence of his corrupting influence, or of the corruption in our institutions that has allowed him to succeed. The truth is, his actions are by nature criminal, by design both opposed to and parasitic upon the law and the constitution of a decent people. (See Robert Reich’s excellent take on how he gets away with it here.)

The Constitution provides the remedy for Constitutional corruption: impeachment. In Nixon’s case, there was bi-partisan pushback, leading to Nixon’s resignation when it became clear that impeachment was coming. The idea that our current Republican Congress would push back on Trump is laughable. The GOP is a festering corpse of a party, capable only of zombie action.

One etymology of the name “Donald” is that it comes from Old Irish domnall, which means “world ruler.” One etymology of the name “Trump” is that it comes from the Middle High German term trumpe, meaning “trumpet” — and it fairly early on referred to a loud, boastful, attention-seeking person, one who, we might say, “toots his own horn.” So there you have in a nutshell Donald Trump: a boastful, attention-seeking, would-be world ruler (already a world-ruler in his own mind, no doubt). So much for his nominal inheritance.

His spiritual inheritance, his character, and his behavior suggest a different name: Corruption, as outlined at the top. Surely, Donald, thy real name, thy name as inscribed in the scrolls of eternity, is Corruption.