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The Ringer’s Press Box podcast regularly features something they call the “Media Piss Test.” The joke is that it has become a political cliché to say something new is like something old, but “on steroids.”
It might be a cliché to describe the corruption saturating the Trump administration as steroidal, but it is simply true that every tool of corruption in our politics, from self-dealing to gerrymandering to outright bribery, has become vastly stronger under Donald Trump. (It also bears mentioning that some figures in the administration display the telltale signs of hitting the gear.)
So perhaps it suffices to say that in 2025, the revolving door between the federal government and the corporations that encircle it has been “Trump-sized.” Even before his inauguration, it was glaringly obvious that the influence industry would have enormous sway in Trump’s Washington. While loyalty and obsequiousness are defining characteristics of multiple White House staff, corporate lobbying experience seems to be valued just as highly.
Even Politico is being direct about the president’s embrace of the swamp, noting that “Trump has abandoned any pretense of cleaning up the age-old ways of Washington,” and that a rash of spins through the revolving door “illustrate the ways in which his administration continues to push the bounds of ethics norms and guardrails designed to prevent government officials from profiting off their time in public service.”
Politico’s reporting further reveals the individuals who are already exploiting this erosion of ethics guardrails, swinging from federal government work to influence-peddling in this boom time for Washington’s quintessential venal operatives.
Why does this matter? Well, there’s an obvious civic virtue problem. When a system allows people to serve in government barely long enough to understand the entity they are set to destroy, and just as they get their sea legs under them, they move to cash out, it signals to the public that corruption is the mode of operation in Washington. But civic virtue is about more than personal morality—we’re more concerned about corruption that enables corporations to endanger people for profit with zero accountability. And the revolving door makes that likely, not just under Trump, but especially under Trump. |
