He's a citizen of the most corrupt country in the world and the (only?) one that legalised that corruption and gave it a different name. He was the biggest donor to the governing party.
It's legal in your country to pay huge sums of money to your politicians in order to buy influence. Ergo the laws of the country and the actions of the government are for sale to the highest bidder.
In most other countries, this would land people in jail, but in the US it's so utterly brazen that you can find the details online. See https://www.opensecrets.org/
Don't forget that the very phrase "Banana Republic" is a result of US corporations that had bought the US govt and gotten them to oust governments in 3rd world countries for the benefit of those US corporations.
Transparency International maintains a global corruption index - the US ranks 27th in terms of "least corrupt" which is within the top quintile. Many other countries rank worse. For example, Fiji is rated 45th on the index.
You can absolutely use money to influence politicians in the US, but that's likely true of wherever you live too. New Zealand is a very not-corrupt country according to the corruption index, but I seem to recall Peter Thiel had no trouble purchasing citizenship in contravention of their laws - I'm sure money had nothing to do with that though.
Oh yes, that's why I consider them the worst. They're so corrupt they legalised it and have conned organisations like Transparency International into believing that in the US, paying off politicians isn't corruption. That's the funniest part... they call it speech.
But the same "speech" in any other country is considered corruption and bribery.
You were able to point to the NZ example with Peter Thiel precisely because corruption is so rare there and there was a massive outcry about his case.
Paying off politicians in the US is illegal and it is prosecuted. As I mentioned, money buys you undue influence over politicians in the US - but that's true in every country. There is no reason to think the US is more corrupt than most countries, or the most corrupt in the world - as you've said. What evidence there is shows that US has unusually low levels of corruption relative to the other countries in the world.
The Transparency International index is based off of a survey of residents asking questions about perceived corruption. Paying off politicians, even if it were done as legal campaign contributions, would contribute to perceived corruption.
I know about the Peter Thiel example not because there was a massive outcry, I have basically no exposure to New Zealand news, but because I read about Peter Thiel and came across the story that way. I have no doubt that all I'd have to do to find an unending stream of money influencing New Zealand politicians is go to Google and search for it. But, I don't need to, because I already know that money is a corrupting influence worldwide - not just in the US.
> The Transparency International index is based off of a survey of residents asking questions about perceived corruption
That's very convenient for the US, and why it managed to avoid being #1 on the list.
In India a small businessman gets annoyed that he has to pay a $20 bribe to have an operating license issued, but it works. He will tell Transparency Intlt that bribery is rampant. In the US there is no bribe a small business owner can pay to make his business work because the multinational billion dollar corporation with offices on Wall Street, D.C, and every other major city has paid off the legislators and had them introduce laws that introduce a barrier to entry that no small business could ever scale. The US small business owner will honestly tell Transparency Intl that he's never had to bribe anyone.
OK but you said the USA is the *most* corrupt country in the world. Meaning if there is even *one* country more corrupt, the US isn't the most corrupt. Why is the US more corrupt than India or Russia for example?
My answer is that in those two countries, bribing legislators is illegal, while enforcement is poor.
In the US, it's all been made legal, so happens on a massive scale right out in the open.
In India a small businessman gets annoyed that he has to pay a $20 bribe to have an operating license issued, but it works. In the US there is no bribe he can pay to make his business work because the multinational billion dollar corporation with offices on Wall Street, D.C, and every other major city has paid off the legislators and had them introduce laws that introduce a barrier to entry that no small business could ever scale.
He'll be fine.