The level of grift seen in American society today is not normal.
It's worse than what I've seen in other Western countries by a lot.
Do I have hard data to support this? No. But anecdotally, everyone - everyone - I know who visits America has noticed this.
"The people over there are like wolves". "They're shameless". "They're all so focused on money". "That whole culture is just scams on scams on scams". "Christ, they're all so fake!" - All actual quotes, with emphatic expletives removed.
I know it's not a common topic of conversation for Americans, but the world hates us now. We're the number one threat to peace and stability since 2003, and only getting worse. Yes, I am ashamed of us. We had so much potential.
Presidents are grifters now. The military industrial complex is a grift. College is a grift. Healthcare is a grift - to an absurd and horrifying level. Banking is a grift that hurts the poorest the most, far worse than in other countries. The news is a grift. The legal system is stuffed to the brim with grift right up to the Supreme Court and right down to the police on the street.
It's been normalized to an extreme degree, at every level of American society. "I'm a hustler". "Don't hate the player". "Looking out for number one", etc. These are not normal phrases in other countries! This is seen as the sign of a very sick culture, one where to survive you need to fuck over other people; one where fucking people over to "get your bag" is seen as a necessity rather than as an abhorrence.
Again - this isn't normal in other countries. We've always had caveat emptor, but the idea that it's fine and normal to get 8 spam phone calls a day would be absurd in any other wealthy country.
This is, imo, fallout from the relentless attacks on anything that could be construed as socialist or taking care of people - itself a massive grift.
The war on terror was a grift - one that has resulted in trillions of wasted dollars - and it resulted in absolutely no consequences for anyone except the whistleblowers who exposed atrocities, war crimes, and global surveillance.
This really doesn't need to be expressed in plural. We have one notable example of someone who entered the race as a grift and was arguably surprised to have won. We've had plenty of candidates in it for the grift before, but only one such victor. Maybe it was only a matter of time, though.