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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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I think there is a good case to be made that a fig leaf is still nudity. If I see the bare ass of someone, I will not say hm, they might be nude, but they might also be not nude because they have covered their genitals. Phrases like full frontal nudity exist to describe the notable absence of any fig leafs.

Corruption also exists on a spectrum. A company bankrolling a congressional candidate will generally not be stupid enough to make an agreement in writing where the candidate pledges to vote in their interest. No, they are merely supporting democracy and exercising their freedom of speech rights, which seem pretty unlimited for corporate citizens as of Citizens United. When the congressman later listens carefully to the company's representative making their case, that is merely because the company is a big employer in his state, not because they are a donor, you see. It will be very hard to prove the opposite.

Other cases are more blatant. Foreign powers gifting Trump airplanes. Fraudsters getting presidential pardons in exchange for investing in his memecoins.

I think there is a good case to be made that a fig leaf is still nudity. If I see the bare ass of someone, I will not say hm, they might be nude, but they might also be not nude because they have covered their genitals. Phrases like full frontal nudity exist to describe the notable absence of any fig leafs.

Fair enough, but then the analogy largely breaks down, because the reason that fig leafed genitals are less outrage-inducing or more okay is that they are, in some meaningful sense, less nude than non-fig leafed genitals. In terms of corruption, corruption that is covered up/hidden/unknown isn't somehow less corrupt by nature of it being covered up in the same way that genitals that are fig leafed are less nude.

It may be true that Trump is meaningfully more corrupt than other POTUSs (if I had to bet, and this were possible to adjudicate in any fair way, I would bet yes - but I'd prefer not to bet, because I know that my judgment on him and his actions is too biased to make a judgment that I have any confidence in being accurate), but that has nothing to do with the fig leaf analogy.