Americans Think Politicians Are Crooks, So They Seek 'Honest Crooks.' They Should Stop Being Surprised When Those Honest Crooks Are Still Crooks. | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: This informational nugget was sent to me by Ben Shapiro, who represents the Daily Wire, and since this is one of the most topical news events, it should be published on BCN.

    On Tuesday, West Virginia Senate candidate Don Blankenship - the man who coined the deathless moniker "Cocaine Mitch" for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell - lost handily in his primary race against two more mainstream candidates. But his loss did occasion a truly useful moment in our politics: a statement from a man who lost three cousins in a tragic coal-mining accident - an accident that could have been prevented by Blankenship's company. That man explained that he would vote for Blankenship nonetheless: "I want an honest crook, and that's Blankenship."

    This quote could sum up the state of American politics in 2018.

    President Trump ran in 2016 as an honest crook - a fellow who knew where the bodies were buried, since he'd helped bury them. Trump stated openly that he had bought access to politicians; he knew how the game was played. American politics was just like Russian politics, but with a few fewer corpses. Trump spent much of the race tut-tutting Americans a la Michael Corleone in The Godfather, lecturing Kay about the fact that mafia work was just like American politics: "Now who's being naïve, Kay?"

    And it worked. It worked, at least in part, because Trump was running against Hillary Clinton, a truly corrupt figure from a truly corrupt family. She was the dishonest crook. Where Trump would come right out and tell you which cement companies in Jersey he'd worked with to build Trump Tower, Hillary pretended to be an honest broker, then watched as political allies stuffed her foundation's coffers.

    Here's the problem: if everybody is corrupt, then there's no real difference between our republic and a kleptocracy.

    The best proof comes courtesy of Michael Cohen, the president's personal fixer. Cohen is a shady character, to say the least - and in normal times, he'd be highly controversial. It now turns out that Cohen received $1.2 million from Novartis AG, a Swiss drugmaker, after the election. Novartis paid Cohen's Essential Consultants LLC - the company Cohen used to pay off Stormy Daniels - in order to "gain insight into the administration's approach to health-care policy." Cohen held precisely one meeting with Novartis, after which, according to Bloomberg, the company "determined that Cohen's firm would be unable to provide the services it anticipated, and decided not to engage further. Novartis had agreed to pay Cohen's firm $100,000 a month for a one-year term."

    This is called corruption. Nobody keeps their job if they pay $1.2 million to a guy who says he can't help them. Clearly Novartis wanted access. Whether they got it or not is another story.

    The same holds true for AT&T, which apparently paid Essential Consultants more than $200,000 in 2017 to "provide insights into understanding the new administration." Really? They could have bought Newt Gingrich's book for $20. Autographed. More likely: AT&T was trying to use Cohen's influence to impact approval of its acquisition of Time Warner.

    And then there's Columbus Nova, which paid approximately $500,000 to Cohen. The media and Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenetti, have claimed that the company is a cut-out for Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, and that this was a nefarious Russian connection. At the very least, it stinks.

    Now, here's the truth: these sorts of payoffs have been common business for years (see Rodham, Hugh). But Trump pledged to drain the swamp, not water it. Instead, he's used his logic - everybody does it - to become the everybody.

    This leaves Americans with two possible paths on corruption: keep electing your corrupt guy, or start electing non-corrupt politicians. Cynicism is of no help here - there are indeed some politicians who aren't looking to trade influence for cash. It's intellectually lazy and morally rotten to simply roll over when it comes to corruption. But that seems to be the path Americans are interested in taking now: get the honest crook, since we're going to get a crook no matter what.