When did our government become corrupt?

Left or right, it's time we face this unsettling question and understand what it means.

You may have heard the bombshell news that our government devoted massive resources to monitoring and censoring legal, constitutionally protected speech. I say “bombshell” almost sarcastically, because we all knew they were doing it, really. Some said it out loud, paying consequences ranging from getting their Twitter account shut down or Facebook post censored.

Others lost jobs, and ended up on government watchlists—or worse, became targets of gestapo-like FBI raids.

So what’s going on? How did we get here?

For much of America, the slow rise of corruption was obvious, but took a marked turn for the worse after Trump took office. That’s not to say that he was the cause of the increase. To the contrary, he seems to have been the threat that shook the hornets out of their nests. As bad as the situation is in America, at least we can now see the hornets that were previously in the shadows, under the eaves, getting stronger without us knowing they were even there. Until suddenly, they are.