World
The speech •
The fight against corruption is bursting the populist bubbles. Jon Ossoff versus Donald Trump
The common thread linking the defeat of Trumpism in the mid-term elections, the fall of Serbia’s Vucic and Bolsonaro’s crushing defeat in Brazil is the fight against corruption. This is the central theme identified by Ossoff, the Democratic senator from Georgia who retained his seat. We publish an extract from his speech
5 NOV 26
Translated by AI
The common thread linking the defeat of Trumpism in the mid-term elections, the fall of the Serbian autocrat Aleksandar Vučić, and the drubbing suffered at the polls by the Bolsonaro clan in Brazil (with the presidential candidate’s hasty flight to the more forgiving state of Florida) is the fight against corruption. Jon Ossoff, the Georgian senator who has just retained his seat, has picked up on this common thread and, with his rhetorical skill, has turned it into the leitmotif of his election campaign, setting a template for other contests.
The link between upholding the rule of law and the fight against corruption is becoming increasingly clear and effective: the bubble of nationalism and populism bursts in the face of the unscrupulous use of money. Ossoff has charted the course, in a far more definitive way than the more general fight against ‘oligarchs’. We publish here an extract from Ossoff’s speech in Atlanta on 17 October, the last one before his victory.
* * *
Georgia, between now and then, we need you to get to work. Not for my sake, but for the sake of our state and our country. You see, there are people who find themselves living in times and places where history is being made. And this year, once again, Georgia, those times and that place are us. Are you ready to work?
Yesterday Donald Trump was in Dalton, seemingly oblivious to the collapse of his presidency. A smaller crowd than this endured two hours of senile ramblings whilst the price of oil hit a five-month high. They had promised to bring prices down from day one. Instead, under the failed president Donald Trump, it costs more than at any time in American history to fill up your pick-up, stock your fridge, visit the doctor or keep your home running. They promised to drain the swamp. Instead, this is the most corrupt administration of all time, and everyone knows it. Meanwhile, as the president and his family continue to earn substantial sums from various global sources, ordinary Americans are paying more for essential goods and services.
They have doubled insurance premiums and reduced Medicaid funding in order to lower taxes for high-income individuals. They have led the country into a war based on disputed intelligence and have spent much of the past year defending the world’s most notorious paedophile. At a rally earlier this week in Ohio, the president encouraged supporters who then attacked a woman calling for the release of the Epstein files. Did you see that? Because if there’s one thing you can count on with this White House, it’s its tireless commitment to war, inflation and covering up sex trafficking.
Remember, they had also promised peace. Instead, they have plunged us into a war they do not know how to end or how to win. The biggest foreign policy disaster since the Iraq war, and yet another war based on lies. Last year they stated that Iran’s nuclear programme had been eliminated; this year they asserted that the same programme posed an imminent threat. Both claims were unfounded. On the fourth day of the war—the fourth day—the president declared victory. On the eleventh day, Trump said: ‘The war is completely over’. It was the eleventh day. On the thirteenth: ‘We’ve won.’ On the twenty-first: ‘We’re almost there.’ On the thirty-second: ‘We’ll be leaving soon.’ On the fortieth day, the President declared: ‘Total and complete victory.’ Today is day 232. And in Dalton, he promised once again that the war will end soon.
Observers note that the president who avoided the draft is making jokes while 21 Americans have died and hundreds are injured. Iran still has its uranium, its drones and its missiles. Diesel prices are at an all-time high. They have depleted our reserves to achieve nothing, while the criminal commander-in-chief is building himself a monument. Meanwhile, as global tensions escalate, Washington and Mar-a-Lago are witnessing a display of corruption that is unprecedented in American history. Reports indicate that Trump, in a position of evident vulnerability, has appealed to Putin for diesel supplies. However, the full extent of the situation remains to be heard.
At precisely the same time, the White House is brokering the sale of billions’ worth of Russian energy assets to individuals who are funding the Trump family and the Trump campaign. We are talking about oil fields, refineries and petrol stations all over the world, to be sold to friends of the First Family in a deal brokered and backed by the US government. Do you remember Jared Kushner? The president’s son-in-law, the so-called special envoy responsible for diplomacy with Russia and the Middle East. Do you recall the other special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who co-founded the President’s controversial cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty? At present, Jared and Steve are negotiating with Vladimir Putin to sell billions of dollars’ worth of Russian oil fields, refineries, and petrol stations to the President’s associates.
Sheikh Tahnoon, head of the UAE’s secret service, paid half a billion dollars to Trump and Witkoff’s cryptocurrency firm. The Al Qaiyat brothers, two Syrians, are financing Jared and Ivanka’s multi-billion-dollar Albanian resort project. A third partner, a billionaire who was a major donor to Trump’s campaign, is also involved. Additionally, the U.S. government would acquire a 15 percent stake in the venture.
Are you beginning to get the picture? In the midst of a global energy crisis, the president’s son-in-law and the president’s business partner are brokering the sale of Russian oil fields to friends of the First Family. The very same friends who have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the Trump family’s businesses. And then there’s Marco Rubio, committing 1.6 billion of your money to support the mining interests of Trump’s sons in Kazakhstan. Have you heard about this? Pete Hegseth diverting hundreds of millions of dollars from the Pentagon to back Don Jr.’s investment in magnets. Venezuelan oil money turning up in Qatari bank accounts. Because, you see, these are literally the very elites they pretend to hate. The crux of the matter is that, if individuals are involved in such activities, they may next year be called to raise their right hand and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help them God, before the United States Congress. This network, often referred to as the Mar-a-Lago mafia, has reportedly elevated American corruption to new and spectacular heights.
However, Georgia, corruption in American politics runs much deeper than Donald Trump. It is understandable why voters supported him, because even before his arrival, U.S. politics operated as a pay-to-play system. Campaign funds enter the process, and favours follow. The mechanism has been fuelled by corporate money, secret money, and billionaires’ money on both sides. And when members of Congress aren’t raising funds from lobbyists and corporate political action committees, they’re trying to avoid being bombarded by these super PACs. Immense wealth buys an ever-greater share of power over our national affairs. And this corruption is why nothing works for ordinary people. It’s why you pay a fortune for medicines. It’s why your insurance company gets away with denying cancer treatment after you’ve paid premiums for decades.
So Trump has promised to tackle a broken system. I understand that. He’s got the right target. Yes, the system really is rigged, but he isn’t fixing it: he’s rigging it all over again to his own advantage. And how do we clean up American politics? Well, first of all, follow the money. Citizens United was the most destructive Supreme Court ruling in modern American history. The rise of Donald Trump is a symptom of this. The crisis we face runs deeper than this presidency. Trump’s rise is proof that business as usual has failed. Our politics, poisoned by corruption, is failing the American public and undermining our national integrity. It is too late to fix what is broken. Many of you are here because you recognise that our task is not merely to contain this evil, but to repair the fracture that lies beneath it. This moment is an opportunity not for restoration, but for reform.
Who really believes that unlimited, secret political money can bend the country’s agenda in the dark? In Athens, Albany, Columbus or College Park, if I ask anyone – Democrat, Independent, Republican or none of the above – if this is how things should work, no matter who they are, the answer is no. Consequently, those who defend the presence of secret corporate funds in politics are invited to come forward and make their case; however, they are likely to lose the argument. In Georgia, should a constitutional amendment be required to overturn Citizens United, advocates intend to present a united front. Each day, their momentum appears to grow, and their coalition broadens. This effort, they assert, is not confined to the Democratic Party.