To expand on the meta a bit, I think the prevalence of corruption being known has two major impacts.
One, the whole 'emboldening' thing, people will commit more brazen crimes if it appears there is no pushback or enforcement response to lesser ones. Dems calling for attacking political opposition even when these are families on a lunch break or at work..
Secondly, I think the dems know the fuse has been lit, and the sirens are wailing in the distance and getting closer... so they are in a panic to do as much crime as they can, in the time that still remains. Picture a jewel thief smashing displays more and more frantically scooping up stuff as they are trying to figure how much time they have left to stage a getaway.
The rhetoric progression and escalation is happening quicker and quicker now - trump supporters are deplorables, no they are doubleplus bad, no they are supremacists, no they are the number one domestic terror threat and all police, media, courts have to be mobilized immediately etc. While actual terror forces can mobilize, travel, communicate, finance, and do crime openly without even fear of arrest.
The same thing happens in every dictatorship - suddenly overnight the people asking pesky questions about rigged elections and drawing attention to the plotters who prefer the shadows are getting vanished into unmarked vans and being sent off for torture.
Welcome. To address the main question of the thread, for myself it was not a particular specific event, though many have contributed to the totality of the belief of corruption.
Human nature being what it is, and power corrupting (with more power bringing more corruption), as soon as you start to notice crooked happenings in your local area with police, or councils, or bribes, or crooks able to operate without interference due to paying off people to look the other way.. and extrapolating out. If local corruption is a thing, why would state, federal or national corruption be any different?
The failing of every major political initiative, the wasting and theft of every single tax dollar, the breaking of every single campaign promise, the coordinated stage-managed press pool that arent real journalists with real questions but essentially are actors playing a part, the political apparatchiks playing the role of an independent neutral observer giving some advice or other on a TV interview that just so happens to cast their rival in a bad light.. it is endless. The parade of political and 'connected' people claiming total and utter hatred for the nation and its values... but staying here. For what reason would you stay somewhere you hate, other than to do that place harm?
Unless proven otherwise, my assumption about every figure in politics is that they would die in prison if the truth about them were known & presented for a fair trial in a court. The exceptions to that truth are rare, and all the more wonderful for that scarcity!
To expand on the meta a bit, I think the prevalence of corruption being known has two major impacts.
One, the whole 'emboldening' thing, people will commit more brazen crimes if it appears there is no pushback or enforcement response to lesser ones. Dems calling for attacking political opposition even when these are families on a lunch break or at work..
Secondly, I think the dems know the fuse has been lit, and the sirens are wailing in the distance and getting closer... so they are in a panic to do as much crime as they can, in the time that still remains. Picture a jewel thief smashing displays more and more frantically scooping up stuff as they are trying to figure how much time they have left to stage a getaway.
The rhetoric progression and escalation is happening quicker and quicker now - trump supporters are deplorables, no they are doubleplus bad, no they are supremacists, no they are the number one domestic terror threat and all police, media, courts have to be mobilized immediately etc. While actual terror forces can mobilize, travel, communicate, finance, and do crime openly without even fear of arrest.
The same thing happens in every dictatorship - suddenly overnight the people asking pesky questions about rigged elections and drawing attention to the plotters who prefer the shadows are getting vanished into unmarked vans and being sent off for torture.
Welcome. To address the main question of the thread, for myself it was not a particular specific event, though many have contributed to the totality of the belief of corruption.
Human nature being what it is, and power corrupting (with more power bringing more corruption), as soon as you start to notice crooked happenings in your local area with police, or councils, or bribes, or crooks able to operate without interference due to paying off people to look the other way.. and extrapolating out. If local corruption is a thing, why would state, federal or national corruption be any different?
The failing of every major political initiative, the wasting and theft of every single tax dollar, the breaking of every single campaign promise, the coordinated stage-managed press pool that arent real journalists with real questions but essentially are actors playing a part, the political apparatchiks playing the role of an independent neutral observer giving some advice or other on a TV interview that just so happens to cast their rival in a bad light.. it is endless. The parade of political and 'connected' people claiming total and utter hatred for the nation and its values... but staying here. For what reason would you stay somewhere you hate, other than to do that place harm?
Unless proven otherwise, my assumption about every figure in politics is that they would die in prison if the truth about them were known & presented for a fair trial in a court. The exceptions to that truth are rare, and all the more wonderful for that scarcity!