This is the Tom Hartman program.

And greetings, my friends, Patriots, lovers of democracy, truth, and justice, believers,

and peace, freedom, and the American way, Tom Hartman here with you.

And we've got a big program today.

Starting out with the Democrats have to use the most powerful word in politics.

Congressman Andy Levin of Michigan is going to be here for progressive town hall meeting,

taking your calls.

But to start out, this whole idea of the most powerful word in politics, there is one

word that Republicans used to use against Democrats.

I mean, when New Gingrich came to power, came to the U.S. Capitol in 1996, as I recall,

and became Speaker of the House, it wasn't when he came to the Capitol, but when he rose

to Speaker of the House, he did it based on the idea that the Clinton administration

was corrupt.

He was my congressman back then.

I lived in Georgia at the time, and we lived in Marietta, which was his district.

And he had run as an anti-corruption candidate.

That was his whole stick, you know, I'm fighting corruption.

If there is one word, the Republicans fear more than any other word, it's corruption.

And for good reason, because when a party or when a politician is genuinely corrupt, when

corruption is a real word, is a real thing, that word can bring down not just governments,

but individual politicians, or maybe I should say not just individual politicians, but

governments, Alexi Navaly used the word corruption against Putin.

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