It was a phrase as memorable as it was powerful, and Democrats used it with devastating effectiveness: the “culture of corruption.” That rotten culture had taken deep root throughout the Republican Party, and by hammering this simple notion on repeat, Democratic candidates helped turn the 2006 midterms into a rout, winning back Congress and finally putting a check on George W. Bush’s extremism and incompetence.
The very same thing is happening again today. Everywhere you turn, congressional Republicans are mired in scandal and ethical disaster:
- In upstate New York, Rep. Chris Collins was indicted for insider trading after he received private information that a company he’d touted for years was about to go under, then advised his family to sell off their shares, avoiding enormous losses.
- In southern California, Rep. Duncan Hunter was indicted for spending campaign funds on personal expenses, like vacations to Italy and a $600 airplane ticket for his kid’s pet rabbit, then filed false financial reports claiming, among other things, that the money had gone to “wounded warriors.”
- In Virginia Beach, staffers for Rep. Scott Taylor filed fraudulent signatures—including those of at least four dead people—to help an ex-Democrat (who herself is on trial for fraud) get on the ballot as an independent in order to split the vote with the real Democrat.
- In suburban Ohio, Rep. Jim Jordan stands accused of failing to report the sexual abuse of student athletes by a team doctor when he was a college wrestling coach, and has encouraged his supporters to blame a delusional “deep state” conspiracy for his woes.
- On the gulf coast of Florida, Rep. Vern Buchanan bought a new yacht worth at least $3 million on the very same day he voted to give himself a tax cut of $2.1 million—and paid for it with a loan from a bank that lobbied for the very same tax legislation, which Buchanan himself helped write.
- In the suburbs of Phoenix, Rep. David Schweikert is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee because of his chief of staff’s questionable levels of outside income and lavish spending of taxpayer dollars, including $5,000 on a getaway to Super Bowl weekend.
- In Orange County, California, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, best known as “Putin’s favorite congressman,” has gone before two congressional committees over his ties to Russian officials and is reportedly of interest to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as well.
And none of this even touches on the extraordinary corruption that starts at the very top, with Donald Trump and his venal cabinet, but it’s very easy to connect everything together as part of one giant, reeking miasma of sleaze. Republican leaders in Congress, eager for tax cuts and conservative judges, simply ignore Trump’s self-dealing, sending a message to their own caucus that the same behavior is acceptable on Capitol Hill, too.
In 2006, this grotesque feedback loop played out in the exact same way, as congressional Republicans gave Bush a free pass, then became enmeshed in a never-ending series of scandals themselves.
The litany included Rep. Bob Ney, who was bribed by corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff and later was sentenced to 30 months in prison; Rep. Mark Foley, who preyed on teenage House interns and went un-policed by the top ranks of House leadership; Rep. Don Sherwood, who was accused of choking his mistress, then agreed to pay her $500,000 for her silence; and no less than the majority leader of the House itself, Rep. Tom DeLay, who resigned in disgrace after getting indicted on charges that he’d conspired to violate election laws.
Democrats made sure voters understood that the problem wasn’t one or two bad apples. It was an entire culture of corruption that had pervaded the GOP, and thanks to the party’s iron lock on Congress, these compromised Republicans were damaging America. But the GOP’s universal rot rusted away that lock, and Democrats were able to pry it off by making sure everyone knew about it. Indeed, exit polls showed that corruption was the top issue for voters in 2006, ahead of even the war in Iraq.
We can do it again today—we have all the evidence we need. We just need to keep repeating those three simple words: culture of corruption. And fortunately, top Democrats seem to be grasping this, including the one who led us to victory in 2006, Nancy Pelosi. Just the other day, she tweeted:
The President is hallucinating when he characterizes Dems’ position on protecting the borders & defeating ISIS. What is real is the #CultureOfCorruption that the President has engendered & the need for Republicans & Democrats to come together to protect Mueller’s investigation.
Spot-on, and she even turned it into a pithy hashtag, something we didn’t have a dozen years ago. Other Democrats are starting to follow suit, and everyone should do the same. The issue transcends partisanship—no voter supports corruption. We just need to remind folks who’s responsible for it, and who’s going to root it out.
Please donate $1 to each of these Democratic candidates for Congress and bring an end to the GOP’s culture of corruption!