The naked truth about president’s wealth

“But it is so clear and so transparent” that it was hardly worth talking about when describing his conflicts of interest, according to a friend of the late Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. As Mr. Trump himself said about his own self-dealing in January, “I found out that nobody cared.”

The president’s surge in personal wealth during the first year of his second term is astonishing, but hardly surprising.

In enriching himself so openly, he has debased not only the office but also the public’s capacity for outrage. That is the danger: predictability breeds numbness and the speed of each new scandal leaves little time for indignation to gather force.

This is not merely bad judgment; it is a governing style built on self-dealing. Launching a crypto venture while helping shape the rules that govern it is one example. Steering public business through no-bid contracts is another.

W.C. Fields quipped that a sucker is born every minute. But this is not comedy. Every dollar gained through crypto schemes, merchandise sales, or insider access is a dollar extracted from someone who believed the game was honest. The question is not when he will stop. It is when we will stop accepting it.

Lawrence F. Buettner

Inverness