Writing in the Washington Post this Thursday, columnist Paul Waldman takes a look at the fall of Steve Bannon, the former Trump campaign operative and political operative, who was just arrested by the feds for the misappropriation of funds from a border wall fundraising campaign that he was a part of.
"But it turns out that the scheme that Bannon has just been criminally charged with is indeed a species of penny-ante grift," Waldman writes. "Yet it’s the sort of grift the American right has been running on its own voters for decades, which makes this absolutely fitting."
Waldman points out that Bannon's arrest is the latest in a string of arrests involving former members of Trump's inner circle. "Why in the world would all these people find their way into Trump’s inner circle? It’s a mystery," he writes.
"But the story of Bannon’s arrest isn’t just a reflection on Trump — though it certainly is that. It’s also an extremely common story on the right and has been for decades, long before Trump came along," Waldman continues. "Conservative operatives such as Bannon have always viewed the right’s rank-and-file with utter contempt, as little more than a collection of fools to be taken advantage of. Their perspective is that of the con man who looks at his marks and says: These people are so dumb, it would almost be a crime not to separate them from their money."
Read the full op-ed over at The Washington Post.