Today’s political landscape is seemingly overrun with populist narcissists looking to grift off the rest of us.  

Someone personally profiting off funds raised for a fallen police officer’s statue would certainly qualify as a profound example of such a “grift.” Indeed, according to the courts, it was criminal. 

Alas, thanks to a presidential pardon, Michele Fiore won’t be spending any time behind bars for the fraud she committed using the memory of a fallen police officer. However, she has been temporarily suspended from serving as a justice of the peace in Pahrump — albeit, she’ll continue to get paid by taxpayers. 

Earlier this week, the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline unanimously ruled to impose an interim suspension against Fiore, saying “her return to full judicial duties … poses a substantial threat of serious harm to the public and to the administration of justice.”

Considering the details of the case, the commission’s ruling seems positively gentle. 

As The Nevada Independent reported at the time, Fiore’s guilty verdict was the culmination of a “trial that included testimony from dozens of witnesses, including Gov. Joe Lombardo, FBI agents, local business owners and Fiore’s daughter.” President Donald Trump, however, chalked the verdict up to pure political bias, alleging she had been targeted due to her “outspoken conservative views.”

Who knew profiting off the memory of a fallen police officer is considered a “conservative view” nowadays? 

As grotesque as the whole spectacle has been, it would be a mistake to believe Fiore’s brazen behavior is somehow unique in the world of politics. The sort of personal profit she apparently sought to grow while “serving” the public represents a lamentably common mindset among our political class — even if most politicians have the common decency to avoid actual criminal activity. 

Indeed, accusations of politicians putting their personal financial interests ahead of the common good is commonplace — largely because it’s abundantly clear that it’s so easy for our leaders to do so. Examples of such potential malfeasance are omnipresent at virtually all levels of government. 

At the end of Nevada’s 2023 legislative session, for example, millions of dollars were handed out to nonprofits that had direct ties to a number of Democratic lawmakers — leading Republicans to accuse the Democratic majority of building a “culture of corruption” within the Legislature.  

Democrats insisted there was no reason for alarm, but the mere act of lawmakers profiting from organizations they just voted to shower with public dollars isn’t a good look. As I’ve written before, even if there is no substantive wrongdoing, it should at least raise a few concerns about what kind of guardrails we have in place to protect against potentially corrupt behavior. 

After all, much of government is, apparently, in charge of policing itself in this regard. In the Nevada Legislature, there are only two low-profile ethics committees to keep lawmakers in line — and as The Nevada Independent reported previously, there’s only been one major incident where the committees have appeared to meet since at least 2009. 

That’s hardly indicative of a system that’s serious about rooting out unethical behavior. 

As bad as it is on the state level, national politics are even worse. Even beyond criminal corruption cases, non-criminal behavior is virtually baked into our political system. Just consider, for example, the uncanny ability of Congress members to dramatically outperform the stock market year after year — which doesn’t feel like much of a coincidence considering their ability to shape policies that directly impact stock performance.  

In other words, the true “culture of corruption” in politics isn’t some narrow description for Democratic impropriety in the Nevada Legislature — nor is it the obvious criminal activities of a former Las Vegas councilwoman. Instead, it’s a term that should be used to describe politics more broadly in today’s modern era. 

And yet, despite most Americans fearing there’s “a lot” of corruption taking place on a daily basis, we the voters keep electing these same people (or people like them) to lead us — like an addict coming back for a fix of whatever drug is tearing our lives apart in the first place. 

And maybe that’s a big part of the problem: Politics has become a drug to those who are deeply involved in it. As gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson so eloquently put it, “Not everybody is comfortable with the idea that politics is a guilty addiction, but it is. They are addicts, and they are guilty, and they do lie and cheat and steal — like all junkies. And when they get in a frenzy, they will sacrifice anything and anybody to feed their cruel and stupid habit, and there is no cure for it.”

It's certainly cathartic to think Thompson was narrowly referring to the populist grifters we dislike, but the truth is it’s not merely the corrupt (or corruptible) politicians who deserve to be likened to addicts. Instead, they’re often more like dealers as they peddle partisan narcotics to an addicted swath of voters frantically doomscrolling social media feeds. 

And what’s worse is that it’s effective. There’s an ever-growing appetite among a certain class of voters for “firebrands,” supposed “truth tellers” and provocateurs — a group of partisan voters who are desperate to pump their veins full of whatever political opiate provides them with a fulfilling sense of self-righteous indignation. 

Having commandeered outsized control over electoral politics in recent decades, those voters regularly give us candidates chosen not for integrity or pragmatism, but for their sheer absurdity. In such an environment, it shouldn’t be shocking to find our political landscape littered with grifters, narcissists and even occasional felons. 

Hell, it’s an ecosystem practically tailor-made for such people.

Michael Schaus is a communications and branding expert based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and founder of Schaus Creative LLC — an agency dedicated to helping organizations, businesses and activists tell their story and motivate change. He has more than a decade of experience in public affairs commentary, having worked as a news director, columnist, political humorist, and most recently as the director of communications for a public policy think tank. Follow him on Twitter @schausmichael or on Substack @creativediscourse.