This is just so ugly

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Last night everything hit the fan when it was reported that the Department of Justice is investigating Matt Gaetz for alleged underage sex trafficking, which he denied and claimed he’s being extorted over it.

As we were all frantically trying to piece together last night what was going on with Gaetz and the DOJ, it evoked memories of the Trump era, where we seemingly couldn’t go three days without some kind of new revelation about some hideously ugly criminal scandal involving Trump and/or his allies. Since he’s been pushed out of power, the news cycle has shifted elsewhere. We still have far too many disturbing news cycles and ugly scandals, but it’s no longer about just one monster and his pals.

But last night was a distinct reminder of just how ugly and corrupt the Trump era was. Is Matt Gaetz guilty? We don’t have any way of knowing yet. But of course Gaetz is a Trump ally, because these kinds of stories in American politics somehow have a way of nearly always finding their way back to Trump.

It’s a reminder of just how normalized this kind of deranged scandalousness became during the previous years. Of course the criminal investigations into Donald Trump and his allies are just now properly getting underway, after four years of a compromised DOJ and FBI, so we’re expecting even more ugly criminal allegations to surface against Trump and his pals. Let’s just be glad that they’re no longer in charge of the country.