Manuel Balan (McGill polisci) has a good argument that may be relevant here. The people who expose incumbent corruption need to have two traits: knowledge of the corruption and an incentive to say something about it. The problem is that these two things don’t normally go together
After all, the people who know are regime insiders, and why would they ever want to expose one of their own?
That’s why corruption tends to get revealed when the ruling coalition is deeply divided and/or “static”, meaning that junior members can’t advance through the ranks.
That’s why corruption tends to get revealed when the ruling coalition is deeply divided and/or “static”, meaning that junior members can’t advance through the ranks.
You can see how this relates to wave elections, where ruling coalitions have been in place for a long time, incumbents are divided over political and policy differences, and there’s been little recent turnover. All of which gives insiders an incentive to spill the beans.
It’s also probably why second presidential terms have so many scandals. The behavior isn’t any worse. There’s just much less reason to stay silent about it.
And if that’s true, a second Trump show is going to be a gong show the likes of which not even Chris Cillizza, in his wildest fantasies, could possibly fathom.
