Opinion: The Jan. 6 grift

Published 1:05 am Friday, May 22, 2026

The Republican Party that once preached law, order, restraint, duty, and character now kneels before a gaudy carnival of greed, grievance, intimidation, and cash.

A $10 billion Trump lawsuit against the IRS over leaked tax information was reportedly morphed into a proposed $1.7 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, a setup that has drawn immediate alarm because reporting says the fund could potentially compensate some January 6 defendants, Trump himself, and other Trump allies who claim political persecution.

On paper, it is presented as restitution. In practice, many Americans see something far darker taking shape: a political slush fund born from insurrection, grievance, and loyalty to Donald Trump.

That is the moment this story crossed beyond ordinary corruption.

January 6 was not a flood or factory accident that created innocent victims deserving compensation. It was a violent assault on the constitutional transfer of power. Yet from that wreckage emerges the possibility that political insiders, allies, and other loyalists could financially benefit from the chaos they helped inflame.

If that happens, America is no longer merely witnessing corruption. It is witnessing the monetization of political extremism.

Conservatives once claimed public office was a trust, not a business plan. They warned that corruption hollows out a republic the way termites hollow out a house, quietly at first, then all at once when the structure suddenly buckles under its own weight.

Donald Trump did not merely bend the Republican Party. He monetized it. Forbes reported his net worth at about $6.5 billion in March 2026, up roughly $1.4 billion from a year earlier, though earlier 2025 estimates put the increase closer to $3 billion over the prior year.

The old conservative language still flickers through campaign speeches, fundraising emails, and prime-time outrage broadcasts, but it no longer governs Republican behavior. Principles survive as props. Patriotism survives as branding. Outrage survives as theater.

The pattern repeats so often it now resembles organized ritual. First comes the scandal. Then comes the denial. Then comes the attack on prosecutors, reporters, judges, witnesses, anyone standing too close to the truth. Facts become fake. Evidence becomes persecution. Accountability becomes betrayal.

Not because the evidence is weak. Because the evidence is dangerous.

Trump’s post-presidency fortune hangs over Washington like cigar smoke in a backroom casino. Luxury deals, crypto ventures, licensing arrangements, influence networks, and family profiteering have all fed the same public impression: the presidency no longer resembles public service. It resembles a franchise operation.

This is not capitalism. It is extraction.

Republicans once attacked even the appearance of corruption. Now they rationalize corruption so casually, so constantly, so completely that the rationalizations themselves have become part of the scandal. Senators who once warned against executive abuse now mumble excuses. House members who once praised constitutional limits now compete to display obedience.

The party did not capture Trump. Trump captured the party.

Healthy political movements police their own excesses. Corrupted movements punish anyone who notices them. The modern Republican Party no longer asks whether conduct is honorable, legal, or defensible.

Again and again Republicans excuse what they once condemned. Again and again they normalize what once would have ended careers. Again and again they move the line, redraw the line, erase the line.

A luxury jet becomes ordinary. Foreign money becomes ordinary. Presidential profiteering becomes ordinary. Family influence peddling becomes ordinary. Now even the aftermath of January 6 risks becoming ordinary, another revenue stream in a movement that increasingly confuses political power with personal enrichment.

And still the party kneels.

The deeper danger is not merely financial corruption. Democracies have survived crooked politicians before. The deeper danger is moral corrosion. Citizens can survive partisan conflict. They can survive scandal. They cannot indefinitely survive the belief that the system itself has become a racket run by insiders.

That poison spreads fast.

Once voters conclude the rules apply only to the weak, cynicism hardens into contempt. Institutions lose legitimacy. Trust evaporates. Politics stops becoming public service and starts becoming tribal warfare fought over money, power, vengeance, and spectacle.

The Republican Party once understood this instinctively. Conservatives once argued that character mattered because character restrained power. Now power devours character. The movement that once condemned moral relativism now practices it daily. The movement that once demanded accountability now attacks accountability. The movement that once warned about corruption now wallows in it.

Not reluctantly. Proudly.

The Republican Party that once preached law, order, restraint, duty, and character now runs on grievance, greed, and submission. If this is still not too corrupt for Republicans, America’s deeper crisis has only begun.

Van Abbott is a long-time resident of Alaska and California. He has held financial management positions in government and private organizations, and is now a full-time opinion writer. He served in the late 1960s in the Peace Corps as a teacher.