One thing I've noticed is that many Americans have a blind spot here. You can get away with a lot of corruption and dishonest behaviour if you're the right kind of American because admitting it would be to question the idea of honesty here.

That's usually why the first port of call when some corruption is detected is Finding What's Weird and the second is Not Like The Rest Of Us.

San Francisco's city government is hopelessly corrupt and visibly so for someone who has lived under other obviously corrupt governments. But that is not even apparent to faraway Republicans who are the only ones who will say it is.

But those people are similarly ignorant of the massive corruption of their own local government.

It has taught me a new path of success for corruption: that of hiding in plain sight among those of your identity.