Impervious Corruption: President Trump and the Deformation of Democracy

ABSTRACT A new set of political corruption concepts is introduced, impervious corruption foremost among them. Impervious corruption occurs when a corrupt political actor is unchecked by institutional guardians, giving the corrupt individual a sense of invulnerability. The resultant relationship between impervious corruption and deformation of democracy is then explained. The focus turns to President Donald Trump's political corruption and shows how the current United States political ecology has suborned his corrupt behavior. It is suggested that President Trump is an innovator in political corruption, engaging in acts heretofore not evident in the political history of the United States. The concluding section provides a set of prescriptions for addressing corruption and attendant deformation of democracy. These prescriptions do not require direct action from government institutions, reasoning that some official guardian institutions have been systematically diminished by the Trump administration and some political leaders have put partisan loyalty over their Constitutional duties.