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In a series of tweets this morning, Nobel laureate, economist, and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, warned that we are “about to enter, or may have already entered, an era of corrupt governance unprecedented in U.S. history.”

We're about to enter, or may already have entered, an era of corrupt governance unprecedented in U.S. history. What does it mean? 1/ — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 21, 2016

Further tweets elaborated on the nature of the threat posed by a Trump administration that we face as a nation:

Important to realize that the money stolen by the first family is a minor issue; $10 billion, say, skimmed off the top is rounding error 2/ — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 21, 2016

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What matters much more is the distortion of policy in directions that can be monetized. Gratuitous private investors in infrastructure 3/ — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 21, 2016

is just the start. Expect to see lots of privatization and a general shift from transparent to murky so that favors can be traded 4/ — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 21, 2016

And think about the pro-tyrant bias of foreign policy. Democratic regimes — say, in Europe — are by their own rules unable to offer 5/ — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 21, 2016

de facto personal bribes to the U.S. president. Putin's Russia or, for that matter, Xi's China, will be fine with sending huge business 6/ — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 21, 2016

to the profiteer-in-chief. And that will cause a tilt of U.S. policy toward authoritarian regimes. Stay alert 7/ — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 21, 2016

As Krugman warned Sunday,



“It was obvious that Trump would exploit office for personal gain to an unprecedented degree. He has already started.”

The president-elect’s administration is filling with lobbyists, and his infrastructure rhetoric is just a huge tax break for corporations and, Krugman has suggested, a “privatization bid.”

The mainstream media is again cooperating with Trump, largely ignoring his Trump U. settlement, let alone drawing any reasonable conclusions from it. Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert, on the other hand, noted that,

“[It] turns out crooked Trump Foundation is EXACTLY what DC press fantasized that Clinton Foundation was. press reax to $25M settlement? meh.”

Two things are already clear: the evidence is mounting steadily that Trump never meant to make America great but to fill his own pockets, and that the mainstream media, complicit in his election, now intends to normalize (and profit by) the new low in the swamp Trump once promised to drain but is now rapidly filling instead.

Photo: By Bin im Garten (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons