Trump’s billion-dollar insider trades and Farage’s £5m cash scandal expose a new era of political graft on both sides of the Atlantic. Join us on Telegram , X , and VK . Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su It’s hard to see where it started and how it’s going to end, but the feral self-enrichment of Donald Trump has literally shocked a nation by its scale and the arrogance of a U.S. president who has no shame whatsoever over the graft. A recent 900-page report, unprecedented in its length and salience, points the finger at Trump’s dirty deals – in particular in crypto – which claims he made a billion dollars last year alone from insider trading. Along with even more graft carried out by his children – either through drone deals made just before the war in Iran began, or through a $1.6 billion investment in Kazakhstan mining – Trump has broken the mould of what was accepted before him of personal enrichment by U.S. presidents, making the Hunter Biden scandals look like chicken feed. Finally, now, his disregard for so many issues – like the midterms themselves or even domestic policy – is beginning to make sense. Having failed entirely to rescue the economy and bring wealth and jobs to blue-collar workers, or even for that matter keep the U.S. out of wars, it’s as though he has given up trying to achieve anything typical of what U.S. presidents attempt. Now, it would seem, we can see Trump in his correct light, and the only interest is money-grabbing on an egregious scale, with only the possibility of the midterms going the Democrats’ way being a possible obstacle to two further years of wholesale embezzlement and misconduct by any U.S. president in the history of the country.
What is particularly shocking is the impunity and arrogance of Trump, who barely makes any effort to even deny it, let alone cover it up. “Nobody cares,” he says with a Gallic shrug of the shoulder. One could be forgiven for thinking that he has already built into his deals protection from any future prosecution for the sensational level of insider trading – the kind of confidence the super-rich have when they break laws due to kinship and political connections.
It’s a similar story in the UK, suggesting that the new business model for Western governments is a new breed of populist leader who only comes into politics because of the opportunities it brings – usually illegal – with perhaps all of our leaders in the future becoming billionaires, which makes the importance of the investigations against Nigel Farage so significant for the future of politics. Farage’s once-cosy relationship with the press has turned sour and has led to a new wave of opprobrium which has uncovered even more graft which he has attempted to cover up, in addition to numerous scandals which parliamentary watchdogs are examining – the latest being a £5 million cash donation to the Reform UK leader, which many suspect was a payment for him to lobby the Bank of England governor to change crypto laws in favour of the donor. And just recently, the press have also uncovered more billionaires – now totalling three – who have been financing Farage’s political power for their own benefit, now leading pundits in the UK to predict that a Labour government will ask for a re-election of his local seat – a move which could remove him from politics altogether. Farage has in fact been receiving cash from sponsors almost from day one in politics, when he became UKIP leader in 1998 and a year later won a seat in the European parliament, according to recent investigations which have uncovered five properties which he bought in the UK – which couldn’t have been purchased via his regular MEP salary – which presumably is why he had those purchases hidden and undeclared.
Farage and Trump operate differently, it should be noted. With Farage, it is more cash-for-services within the political sphere; whereas with Trump, it’s using his position to manipulate markets to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars. But in both cases, it is not only illegal but a seismic threat to the whole democratic system of how the political apparatus functions, and needs to be stamped out.
It would appear, though, that in the UK there is more outrage and passion broadly from the public about such graft, and the Labour party, which still holds a huge majority in the House of Commons, may well score some points by making an example out of Farage by forcing a by-election of his own seat. It would seem that the cash scandals of Farage have had some impact on his own support base, with some on the left speculating that his career is over, although this doesn’t necessarily mean the demise of Reform. It is not far-fetched to envisage Farage even standing down as Reform leader if he loses his seat and leaving politics altogether for a life in business, as commentators like Fraser Nelson in the UK speculate that he will have to choose between the cash he loves or the political life. Many in the UK who would be ready to vote for Reform are turned off by how fake Farage comes across, given that his message to the electorate is that he represents the common man fighting against the elite. It’s as though his time is up, as all of Farage’s lies seem to have caught up with him. The Houdini of Westminster seems to have drowned already in his glass tank with the chains still attached.
For Trump, this stark choice of cash over politics is not even on the horizon. Although if the “shame of the nation” narrative over the self-enrichment scandal grows, the midterms may well turn out to be a vote which has little to do with partisan politics and everything to do with Americans wanting to preserve their own democracy. It might be an anti-graft vote which installs the Democrats into at least one house, which can then investigate Trump’s deals at length with a view to impeachment. The only real reason why Trump seems undisturbed by this is that he may well have prepared for it – perhaps via the Jewish lobby – and that all of the known Democrats who would rally behind impeachment have had blackmail dossiers prepared against them, aided by Netanyahu and Mossad. Would that explain the mercurial and mysterious proximity he has with Netanyahu and the Zionists in general? The same game that keeps Trump in their pocket is the one he will play against his adversaries. Nothing is dirtier than blackmail, which is a game that only ends with a bullet to the head. Expect unexplained deaths if the Democrats win the House in the U.S.. In the UK, expect a new Reform leader while Farage bribes his way back into politics via a by-election, perhaps even as an independent. In both Washington and London, it would seem that democracy as we knew it is facing the abyss.