Trump’s corruption leaves us cynical – and complacent | Judith Levine

What happened

According to The Guardian’s source item, Trump’s corruption leaves us cynical – and complacent | Judith Levine, Impunity breeds popular cynicism, and cynicism undergirds autocracy As his mentor Roy Cohn counseled , Donald Trump never admits wrongdoing or apologizes. But he occasionally evinces something resembling a qualm. In October, considering renewing claims against the government for $230m in compensation for federal investigations against him, he reflected on his own appointees deciding on the payout and him signing off on it. “It sort of looks bad, I’m suing myself, right?” he said. “So, I don’t know.” That month, when he demolished the White House East Wing to build his ballroom, he made it sort of look good by vowing that the now $400m project would be privately funded. It went without saying that the donors would expect gratitude in the form of government contracts or favorable regulatory rulings. Continue reading…

Context

The development sits in VINI’s Global file for readers following international affairs, institutions, conflict, diplomacy, economics, and cross-border consequences. The original report is linked so readers can check the source account, follow later updates, and compare new coverage against the first published record. The source item is dated 2026-05-27T10:00:25+00:00.

What to watch

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Source

Primary source: Trump’s corruption leaves us cynical – and complacent | Judith Levine via The Guardian. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.