1

I want to ask about people supporting actual corruption to fight alleged corruption, and if it ever worked out well in instances comparable to the current US support of Donald Trump.

To do so I need to make credible claims that assert Trump's corruption. The problem I see is that normal people understandably don't want to witness the inevitable comment wars, some will assume this is pushing a baseless political narrative, and partisans will attempt to argue the credible claims, which will distract from the question.

One approach to reduce the pushback would be to split the question as follows:

1: What kinds of corruption has President Trump been credibly accused of, that have not been debunked?

And question 2:

2: Many people in the US support President Trump despite[citation to prove said support of despite corrupt acts] several known corrupt acts[link to corrupt acts in question 1], or explicitly support the corrupt acts[citation to prove said support of corrupt acts], because Trump supports the fight against alleged corruption[citations, probably involving a debunked Biden conspiracy theory].

Are there any cases where comparable campaigns of actual corruption against alleged corruption successfully reduced corruption?

Would these be on topic for this site, and if not, are there changes you can suggest to bring them on topic while maintaining the original intent: asking about successful precedent of supporting known corruption to fight alleged corruption, in a situation comparable to the one in the US today?

0

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
3

While you might come from a filter-bubble where Trump's corruption is an undisputed fact, other members of this community come from filter-bubbles where the opposite is considered truth.

For that reason you can not assume that "Trump is corrupt" is just an axiom on which you can build a question. And no, adding a hundred reputable sources which "prove" Trump's corruption will not help. All of these "instances of corruption" are discussed back and forth all around the Internet. There is no consensus on either. So all you achieve is to start another back and forth of the same old arguments which were posted a million times before on thousands of different political discussion forums. It doesn't lead anywhere. Lots and lots of people have tried to settle that discussion and failed. And we will not succeed at settling it either.

So no, you can not ask this question about "fighting corruption in a situation comparable to the one in the US today" because people don't agree what situation that actually is. In order to ask this question, you have to find some common ground first on which everyone can agree. And I am afraid you won't find common ground as long as Donald Trump is part of the question.

So how could we ask this question?

  1. Define what kind of corruption in the state apparatus the head of government is supposed to fight. Be specific enough that the question is answerable, but vague enough that it won't apply just to the United States (if you are too specific, then it won't be possible to find any examples which fit).
  2. Define the attributes of the head of state. Again, be specific enough to keep the question answerable, but vague enough that it won't fit only on Trump and no other leader in world history.
4
  • 2
    Nepotism. Emoluments. Trump U. Tax Reports. Sondland's ambassadorship, history of stiffing contractors, 10'000+ false or misleading statements, etc. I truly appreciate the time you took to write the (multiple) responses, but sometimes taking the position between two opposing statements is neither neutral nor unbiased.
    – Peter
    Dec 6, 2019 at 14:19
  • 1
    I understand the approach you suggest, but wouldn't that lead to everyone just responding "oh, i know such a case, let me tell you about Donald Trump", and then exactly the same issues popping up, except without the following discussion being constrained by a clear definition of and limitation to the proven cases of corruption?
    – Peter
    Dec 6, 2019 at 14:25
  • 1
    @Peter-UnbanRobertHarvey Clinton Foundation. Uranium One. Hunter Biden. Schiff obtaining Nunes' telephone records. As Philipp correctly states: we won't be able to resolve this in the comments section.
    – Sjoerd
    Dec 9, 2019 at 20:26
  • @Sjoerd False equivalence. Ironic that I'm the one being accused of bad faith.
    – Peter
    Dec 10, 2019 at 10:29
0

Most people, who find themselves in a flame war, don't actually realize it until the flame war begins to draw down. When your arguments start to resemble "Horde vs Alliance" arguments, you are in a flame war.

Alliance-only players do believe that they have the only right argument. Horde-only players do believe that they have the only right argument. There are players who play both factions, but they don't get into these arguments. They get what they want from both factions and move on.

If you really want to pretend that you never heard of WoW and Horde v Alliance, then vi v emacs works just as well as an example of a flame war.

It's always based on impartial knowledge. It's always based on the belief that the knowledge which you do have significantly outweighs what you don't know and that this makes what you don't know of-no-consequence.

The kicker is that, at least in WoW, this impartial knowledge is spoon fed to both Horde and Alliance players by the same game designers. Somehow, based on which faction they pick, people end up hating the players of the other faction who are demographically the same as they are.

If you find yourself thinking with derision of the opposite faction in a flame war, you are being played.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .