Thread by @doctorow

Remember the 2016 campaign when Trump kept telling us that

a) The government was hopelessly corrupt, sending vast fortunes to gouging profiteers and beltway bandits; and

b) He knew how it worked because he was really good at it?

He was telling the truth, on both counts.

1/

Here's the invoice Trump's Mar-a-Lago sent to the White House after he held a state dinner with (then-)Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2018:

washingtonpost.com/context/mar-a-…

2/

The bill breakdown shows Trump billed the US taxpayer $3 for each glass of water served that night.

Trump's extracted at least $8.1m via price-gouging that he was on both side of - Trump, Inc billing Pres. Trump, who signed off on the expenses.

washingtonpost.com/politics/ballr…

3/

Trump's critics are careful to document his lies, but they're less vocal about his truths. When Trump said that the US government was a grift, he wasn't lying. When he said he knew how it worked, he wasn't lying.

4/

When he said that the political establishment was playing the people for suckers, he wasn't lying.

The fact that he was OBVIOUSLY going to worsen these problems wasn't as material to some voters as the fact that he was finally saying something they knew to be true.

5/

Four years later, he's proved himself right, over and over again, and whatever happens this week, he's unlikely to face meaningful consequences for his crimes.

eof/