David Brooks, at the NY Times, indicts Donald Trump Jr.
No, not for the Crimes he’s undoubtedly committed (Brooks isn’t convinced justice will ever be meted out to the drumpf crime family) but for the absolute absence of morality and ethics Jr. has demonstrated since his latest criminality first came to light last week, an absence fully on display in the triumphant photos he posted with slain top predators and sentient ruminants he has murdered, his various slanders against Hillary Clinton, and which was bred out of the family over several generations of amoral behavior.
In "Moral Vacuum in the House of Trump." Brooks takes us through a short history of the miscreants whose procreative activities produced Donnie Dorko, much to our nation’s misfortune, starting with his not so great great grandfather, Friedrich Drumpf :
“Gold fever hit the Pacific Northwest, and Grandfather Trump moved up to Bennett, British Columbia. It was a fast, raucous, money-grabbing atmosphere and Trump opened the Arctic Hotel, which had a bar, a restaurant and, according to an advertisement in the Dec. 9, 1899, edition of The Bennett Sun newspaper, “private boxes for ladies and parties.” Each box apparently came equipped with a bed and a scale to weigh the gold dust that was used to pay for the services offered in it.
After demonstrating that the family fortune was rooted in prostitution, Brooks intimates how it was increased by fraud and outright theft.
About Jr.’s grandfather Fred:
“Biographies describe a man intent on making his fortune and not afraid of skating near the edge to do so. At one point, according to Politico, federal investigators found that Frederick used various accounting measures to collect an extra $15 million in rent (in today’s dollars) from a government housing program, on top of paying himself a large “architect’s fee.” He was hauled before investigating committees on at least two occasions, apparently was arrested at a K.K.K. rally in Queens (though it’s not clear he was a member), got involved in a slush fund scandal with Robert Wagner and faced discrimination allegations.”
Brooks seems to understand that we all are aware of Trump Sr.’s contributions to making his family richer, through theft of services, busting out of businesses and ere to be proven money laundering for the Russian Oligarchs. He moves quickly to conclusion via a couple of examples of Jr’s own lack of a moral code - the glee with which he accepted Russia’s offer of election fixing and the many lies he told during the Hannity softball tossing interview — arriving at this stark view of our future:
“Successful business people, like successful politicians, are very ambitious, but they generally have some complementary moral code that checks their greed and channels their drive. The House of Trump has sprayed an insecticide on any possible complementary code, and so they are continually trampling basic decency. Their scandals may not build to anything impeachable, but the scandals will never end.”