U.S. President Donald Trump’s election last November and the accelerated institutional and personnel changes since his inauguration have forced Americans into new political territory. In particular, anti-corruption institutions and norms are unraveling. Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered the Justice Department to prioritize cases related to criminal cartels and closed down Task Force KleptoCapture and the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative; Trump himself ordered a pause in new investigations or enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for six months.

When great changes are afoot, we look for a user manual. There will be new patterns of living and new expectations for the future. The rapidly developing corruption landscape in the United States will be no exception.

When great changes are afoot, we look for a user manual. There will be new patterns of living and new expectations for the future. The rapidly developing corruption landscape in the United States will be no exception.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s election last November and the accelerated institutional and personnel changes since his inauguration have forced Americans into new political territory. In particular, anti-corruption institutions and norms are unraveling. Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered the Justice Department to prioritize cases related to criminal cartels and closed down Task Force KleptoCapture and the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative; Trump himself ordered a pause in new investigations or enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for six months.

While those developments focus on U.S. businesses engaging in corruption overseas rather than at home, other anti-corruption norms are also coming under rapid and significant pressure. The Trump administration has fired at least 17 inspectors general—offices installed after the Watergate scandal as an independent check on mismanagement and abuse of power within government agencies—as well as several senior Justice Department employees. The president also issued an executive order that undermined the independence of agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission, both of which have important roles in detecting and punishing corruption.

For some, these changes go beyond the usual shifts in policy that come with a new administration. They seem to require a new vocabulary. For example, few people had heard of the word kakistocracy (a society governed by its least suitable or competent citizens) until it was the Economist’s 2024 word of the year. Pundits have labeled the tech executives with the best seats at Trump’s inauguration as America’s new oligarchs; in his farewell address to the nation, President Joe Biden issued a warning that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America.” And in February, Sen. Bernie Sanders deployed a more dire descriptor still when he said the Trump administration was “moving this country very rapidly toward a kleptocracy.” What do these terms mean, both definitionally and in practice? And which, if any, can be accurately said to apply to the United States’ oncoming political order?

A centered gold line

The first definition required is that of corruption itself. Corruption is the building block of regimes considered antithetical to Americans and the American tradition yet has been frequently invoked across the political spectrum of late. “I campaigned on the fact that I said government is corrupt—and it is very corrupt,” Trump said in an appearance with advisor Elon Musk at the White House in February. Indeed, rooting out graft in the so-called “deep state” bureaucracy is one of Musk’s stated goals for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), set up via executive order in January. Among other accusations, Musk has said his team at DOGE discovered “known fraudsters” receiving payments from the federal government and that some people working in the bureaucracy, including at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), had been taking “kickbacks.”

Few would argue that fraud and