You’re not fooling me, Jimmy Carter. You did that on purpose! Dying when you did, I mean.

You chose last month to grab the global political spotlight once more to make a statement with the only Earthly move you had left: Checking out. What better way to make people ponder the state of political integrity in America than to reflect on Carter just the Trump Kakistocracy is moving its arrogant billionaires, corporate grifters, and ideological tyrants into our White House.

Sure enough, media coverage of Carter’s death highlighted his modest life in Plains, Georgia, plus the personal values of fairness and honesty that led him to a lifetime of roll-up-your-sleeves humanitarian efforts. What a damning contrast to the tawdry greedfest on display at Mar-a-Lago, with supposedly-respectable corporate executives flocking to “get theirs” in Trump’s sell-off of government favors and public offices.

And how amazed Carter must have been to see the gilded Trumpers flagrantly rejecting any pretense that theirs is to be a government of and for The People. He even saw Elon Musk – the prancing prince of plutocratic pomosity – practically move into Trump’s Florida mansion to shape the new government. To put a gloss of legitimacy on Elon’s self-serving role, Trump grandly named him head of an imaginary federal office he calls the “Department of Government Efficiency.” This DOGE should be pronounced “dodgy,” for it doesn’t actually exist and has no authority. But Musk is nonetheless flitting about officiously announcing that he will eliminate major programs that benefit people, while increasing government funding for – surprise! – corporations like his.

Even in death, the light of Jimmy Carter’s public integrity exposes the public corruption coming from Trump’s darkness.

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