Trump v. Washington
It was, in the historic telling, supposedly a swamp.
That swamp being Washington, D.C. The problem with this story is that it is a myth. There was no swamp. Historians at the National Trust for Historic Preservation make it plain, as headlined here: “No, Washington Is Not Built on a Swamp.”
It’s time to retire an old metaphor that has no basis in D.C.’s history.
If in fact Washington had been built on a swamp, the buildings would have sunk into that swamp long ago.
Yet in interesting fashion, the myth of Washington as a swamp is as solid as the also mythical belief that, once a governmental institution is established and filled with hundreds of federal employees, it can never be shut down and abolished. It must exist for, literally, eternity.
This explains exactly why there is such animosity in the nation’s capital for President-elect Donald Trump and his appointed agents for government reorganization, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
I often posit this to friends to explain what’s wrong in Washington.
Let’s say a congressman wakes up in the morning to find his 5-year-old has a runny nose. The congressman goes into his office and has legislative staff write a bill that creates a federal “Department of Children With Runny Noses.” The bill passes on a wave of outrage that nothing has been done to take care of America’s children with runny noses. Once passed, a brand new ten-story building to house the new department is built in downtown Washington. It is quickly filled with hundreds of brand-new federal bureaucrats who earn six-figure salaries. They are all unionized and their union dues go to the political world of the Democratic Party. The Department is now ready to live for eternity, or as long as the United States of America exists.
In short, that has become exactly the model for governing the country in real life. This time around, President-elect Trump is vowing to abolish the federal Department of Education. One can be sure that when he takes office and actually tries to do this? When that moment arrives all unshirted “h…e… double l” will explode in Washington.
In fact, as this is written, the Daily Caller is headlining this: “Trump Insiders Expect DOJ Attorneys May Resign En Masse To Avoid Being Canned By POTUS.”
The story reports this:
In the week and a half since Trump’s election, Politico reported that “a collective sense of dread” is filling the Department of Justice. Career DOJ attorneys told the outlet that they are considering leaving before the administration begins as the former president has threatened to fire “deep state” lawyers.
“Everyone I’ve talked to, mostly lawyers, are losing their minds,” one DOJ attorney told the outlet.
Then there is the Establishment media. Indeed, the New York Times has already targeted Trump, editorializing that “America Makes a Perilous Choice.” They have also framed Hegseth “as undeserving of the post he seeks” at the Pentagon. And over at Newsweek is this article, “Trump Nominates Matt Gaetz for Attorney General in Shock Pick.”
But of course. No surprise.
This is exactly the reason Trump is nominating people like Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, Robert Kennedy Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard to his Cabinet in their respective positions.
They, as with Trump himself, are willing to challenge the quite standard Washington worldview. To do their best to put an end to it.
In the case of the Gaetz and Hegseth nominations, they are appointed to head mammoth federal bureaucracies filled to overflow with woke bureaucrats who are all about a federal government that rules over the justice system and the American military respectively in the fashion of woke czars and czarinas. (READ MORE: Three Cheers for Pete Hegseth)
The use of the Department of Justice and local Democrat-run prosecutors in places like New York and Atlanta epitomize the weaponization of the legal system to target a political opponent. That opponent, of course, would be Donald Trump.
Lost sight of in all this is that someday — four years away come January — Trump will leave office. And whoever else would take his place as the leader of the 2028 GOP — a JD Vance, Ron DeSantis, Marco Rubio, or whomever — could be easily targeted in the same way as Trump has been because now the precedent has been set.
The central question that is coming front and center as Trump preps to take office is, when will this routine way of doing business in Washington be put to an end?
That is the central challenge for Trump, his Cabinet nominees, and his government efficiency appointees Musk and Ramaswamy.
They are dealing in Washington with a Big Government mentality that is reinforced by countless special interests that make piles of money influencing that government. Will something be done about the revolving door mentality that has someone take a job in the federal bureaucracy, and then eventually revolve out to join a lobbying firm where their main task is to lobby — for big bucks — the government agency where the bureaucrat once worked?
In short, Trump’s pledge to put an end to this decidedly expensive game for taxpayers has already made a city filled with political opponents who are going to target Trump and any of his Cabinet members who are seen as key players in taking on the system.
Which guarantees that the next four years in Washington will be an existential battle royal.
On the positive side, both Trump and his Cabinet nominees, not to mention his incoming White House staff, understand all of this. They understand exactly why Washington is really called a swamp. And they will not back down.
In other words? Buckle in.
READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord:
The Media Targets Trump — Again
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