He IS doing it. He could choose to do better.

He doesn’t get a pass.

Trump has taken corruption to a new level. Biden was bad, this is worse. It’s like stealing power lines for their copper, the damage to the general wealth is immense. I think a big part of the shift to democrats in advance of the midterms is the hope that democratic oversight will put an end to it.

Either way, this is what the looting stage of collapse looks like to me.

I have no love for communist regimes but this corrupt capitalism alternative understandably isn’t appetizing. Consider the damage the Harvard Institute for International Development did to post USSR and how a country that was eager to adopt western ways was introduced to new levels of looting they didn’t even know was possible. Perhaps if we had a better track record in governance people wouldn’t be so reluctant to adopt it.

It is entirely possible for the US government to have been implementing an awful policy for decades, and for Trump to be cranking it up to 13 and making things massively worse.

Most things aren't binary.

The extremity of the current administration's actions do not absolve the sins of others.

The extremity of the current administration's actions should not be ignored just because others did some things in a similar direction.

"Yawn, same shit different day" is how we sleepwalk ourselves into fascism.