As no doubt we’ve all heard – at least those of us without selective hearing – it turns out Trump was lying again. From CNN:
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to “drain the swamp” — leading chants of the phrase at his rallies — part of an anti-establishment, anti-Washington message that was predicated on rooting out corruption and bringing an outsider’s perspective to government.
But since the election, the phrase has been turned against Trump with biting irony.
Critics have used it to assail Trump’s high-level appointments of Wall Street and DC veterans, like former Goldman Sachs executive Steven Mnuchin as treasury secretary and Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general. Ron Klain, a former Obama administration official, tweeted, “Sure, Drain the Swamp. Congrats to all you outsiders who thought that Hillary Clinton was too establishment.”
Turns out he was just replacing one brand of alligator with another. And while their corruption is in the future, and so cannot yet be criticized, I think we can expect it to happen. Why?
Because we’re talking about amateurs and businessmen. And to them, it’s not even corruption, it’s just “how you do business.” I’m neither kidding nor condemning; it’s simply that, for them, it’s all buy and sell, that’s how their minds work, that’s the optimization of their methods. They don’t have the training, the culture, the understanding that we’re not in government to make money, but to execute the goals of government – and without accomplishing those goals, the whole country will gradually fall apart.
The anti-government rhetoric of the last several decades is seeking a roosting place, and it may have finally found it. Don’t anyone look up or you’ll get you-know-what in your eye, all unadvertised.
