This point of view contributes just as much to the corruption of politics as people who may actually be acting it out, because it implicitly asserts that there are no values in play beyond power.
There may be no way of knowing for sure if anyone involved genuinely holds principles above power. But there are absolutely issues of principle in play, and in a well-functioning representative society, everyone has the privilege of lining up behind principles to give them currency.
Personally, I'm behind the idea that our head of state should be determining benefits offered to foreign nations by recognizable general national interest, not by personal interest, or partisan interest, certainly including tying foreign participation in investigation theater to aid.
Hell, I'm behind the idea that our head of state should have a coherent concept of what the national interest is.
But then again, that'd require voters who have some idea of this. And citizens who have a vision of society that's more than a struggle for status and privilege for those who achieve it.
So, shouldn't you be in favor of the investigation into Biden? Since that is exactly what he did.
"This plane's leaving in about 6 hours. If the prosecutor [investigating his son's firm] isn't fired, you're not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch, got fired!"
The prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was not investigating Burisma, the firm that employed Hunter Biden [1]:
> Mr. Shokin was not aggressively pursuing investigations into Mr. Zlochevsky or Burisma. But the oligarch’s allies say Mr. Shokin was using the threat of prosecution to try to solicit bribes from Mr. Zlochevsky and his team, and that left the oligarch’s team leery of dealing with the prosecutor.
In addition, the US was not the only government seeking his removal:
> His dismissal had been sought not just by Mr. Biden, but also by others in the Obama administration, as well other Western governments and international lenders. Mr. Shokin had been repeatedly accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in his office and among the Ukrainian political elite, and criticized for failing to bring corruption cases.
There may be no way of knowing for sure if anyone involved genuinely holds principles above power. But there are absolutely issues of principle in play, and in a well-functioning representative society, everyone has the privilege of lining up behind principles to give them currency.
Personally, I'm behind the idea that our head of state should be determining benefits offered to foreign nations by recognizable general national interest, not by personal interest, or partisan interest, certainly including tying foreign participation in investigation theater to aid.
Hell, I'm behind the idea that our head of state should have a coherent concept of what the national interest is.
But then again, that'd require voters who have some idea of this. And citizens who have a vision of society that's more than a struggle for status and privilege for those who achieve it.