You may ask yourself, “Where is that beautiful United States?”

And you may ask yourself, “Am I right? Am I wrong?”

And you may say to yourself, “My God! What have they done?”**

Or… you may ask: What makes Donald Trump run — other than junk food and golf ?

John Stoehr argues in washingtonmonthly.com that focusing on the trauma of globalization, rise in authoritarianism, and Russian election collusion in order to understand the Trump presidency may cause us to miss its most obvious feature — corruption and creed.

He’s a wannabe dictator but he could be golfing, not pretending to be responsible with power. My point is about incentives. Putin had good reason for Trump to be president. So did autocrats the world over who are busy undermining liberal democracy in their countries. For them, it’s about power. But for Trump?

After all is said and done, money. That’s gotta be it. As Bloomberg’s Tim O’Brien noted, it’s no secret the Trump family, after moving into the White House, put a “For Sale” sign on the front lawn. Fortune 500 companies could see that access to the president was simply a matter of decoding the price tags.[…]

My point here is that collusion, treason, white supremacy, political legitimacy — these are major themes that will preoccupy our minds as much as they have dominated our understanding of Donald Trump. But let’s remember the simplest explanation is always the best, that this presidency may be best characterized by corruption.

After all it’s the money and corruption that Robert Mueller’s investigation is locked on to — as if Trump were a mob boss — follow the money trail.  Why not keep it simple?

*That’d be Occam’s Razor .

** Once in a lifetime apologies to Talking Heads