Was it the Iran war that cost the Midterms? Was it higher gas prices? Was it higher grocery prices? Was it data centers?

No, no, no and no.

Take the first. Average Americans don’t really care if a few dozen American soldiers get blown up in the Mideast. Sorry, but it’s true. And they care even less about a few hundred thousand Iranians.

As for higher gas prices, I hear a few complaints, but I see no change in behavior. People still drive monster pickups, and they still drive them aggressively. They’ll drive 30 miles to Costco for a 118” TV to load into their monster pickup (don’t scratch the bed!) and then complain that the gas for the pickup costs too much.

As for the price of groceries, gimme a break. No voters are unable to afford groceries. Data centers? What’s a data center?

Here’s what it was. Exit polls show that a very important thing to a great majority of voters was the perceived corruption of the Trump administration. Voters have learned to expect ordinary politicians to be corrupt. But they still don’t like it.

Trump was considered different than ordinary politicians, and for good reason. He was not a lawyer. He was not a smooth talker. In fact, he had an almost endearing quality (almost) of speaking incoherently. He had no political experience prior to his first term as President. His grandiosity and pomposity were cartoonish, but seemingly harmless.

He promised to change Washington D.C., and he seemed like the guy to do it. After all, why would a billionaire conspire to cheat a few nickels and dimes out of the American taxpayers? Indeed, Trump in his first term was noticeable honest, or at least uncorrupt.

In his second term, not so much. The New York Times asked him last January about the difference. Trump candidly answered that he got “no credit in his first term” and “nobody cared” that he was non-corrupt. From that, he learned that non-corruption was a non-starter. He was leaving money on the table.

Things changed in his second term. In fact, you could say he’s made up for lost ground, or at least made up for lost dollars.

The unseemly stuff is appalling. Qatar gave him a 747 jet, and he gave them security assurances and development deals. United Arab Emirates gave his family cryptocurrency firm about $2 billion and he gave them AI computer chips. Rich donors gave millions to Trump campaign funds, and he gave them executive pardons.

Trump’s venture capital firm received cheap stock from a drone startup, and the drone startup received a lucrative Pentagon contract causing the stock value to surge. A Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin secretly bankrolled Trump, Jr.’s wedding reception.

Days after the 2024 election, Trump invested in a struggling investment firm, and then the firm’s portfolio companies received a host of federal contracts and regulatory approvals.

It goes on and on. What is cited above is only a portion of the insider deals and outright payments received by Trump-related entities. Forbes estimates that Trump’s net worth has nearly doubled – it has increased by billions – since his election in 2024. And that does not include the increased net worth of his family and friends.

Trump has rendered quaint the notion that a billionaire would not stoop to using the Presidency to acquire additional billions.

As mentioned above, Americans have unfortunately come to expect their politicians to be corrupt. But Trump was different. He said he was. He seemed to be.

He wasn’t.

In 1919, a gambling ring paid the Chicago White Sox to throw the World Series in what became known as the “Black Sox Scandal.” Legend has it that after one of their stars, Shoeless Joe Jackson, admitted as much to a Grand Jury, a boy pleaded with him, “Say it ain’t so, Joe! Say it ain’t so!”

Joe’s response was, “Yes, kid, I’m afraid it is.”