How the Republican Party Lost Its Way
In the Trump administration, the rot starts at the top.
Setting the example.
Photographer: David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images
When the Watergate scandal mushroomed in 1974, shell-shocked Republicans had spent their political lives viewing the Democratic Party as corrupt and dominated by big-city machines and favor-swapping Southerners. This characterization, though exaggerated, contained an element of truth.
Today, it’s the Republicans led by President Donald Trump who are the party of corruption, without exaggeration. The rot is in Congress, where a prominent lawmaker was indicted last week; in state houses, where the governor of Missouri had to resign; and, most of all, in the national administration. Trump, who vowed to drain the swamp, has instead presided over a sewer of scandals not seen since the days of the Teapot Dome affair of the early 1920s.