Draining the Swamp

[_Markk]

I am not sure how much can be attributed to Trump, and how much to young people seeing their parents politics as crap...but we are seeing a draining of the swamp on both sides of the isle. Personally I think this is awesome in many ways, and bad in other ways.

The Bush and Clinton strangle hold is done. The Pelosi's and McCain's are more or less done. The Me Too movement is starting to expose the "Hollywood left" types. And young people are looking elsewhere. Cable news and the pundent shows seems to have peaked and are on the down side, and just too predictable. The GOP does not know what to do with their leader, and the left is equally stymied.

I try to imagine if Clinton had won, would we really be better off knowing what we know now about what was exposed by about her, and how she has handled her loss? what if Bush had won? Or Cruz? Or Bernie? I can't imagine a settled nation with anyone of these as president...?

When DJT and Hillary Clinton were first elected by their parties to run, I asked myself and I believe posted here, "how did we get to the position, as a nation, in having these two as our choices?

Now, looking back, and forward, and trying to take a positive from the negative...I believe that maybe, just maybe, Trump's greatest achievement may be the draining of the status quo (swamp).

While I may not like it, I could see a young Bernie Sanders type, that is a little more centered, running away with a future election...Maybe Rand Paul...he seems to get more and more attention?

Anyways...thoughts?

[_EAllusion]

Over 1/3rd of appointments to the head of regulatory agencies in the Trump admin stand to directly financially benefit from their regulatory decisions. Virtually all have specific industry lobbying ties to the very industries they are appointed to regulate. It's the full realization of what the economist James Buchanan called regulatory capture.

Trump himself is personally profiting from the presidency in a way that is unprecedented in American history. People literally pay his companies for access to him and influence on policy. Imagine what people were fearful of with the Clinton Foundation, only significantly worse and actually happening.

This barely scratches the surface, but the it's hard to think of a time when the federal government has been more corrupt. We're witnessing something worse than Teapot Dome happening directly in front of us rather than as a scandal to be uncovered. The swamp is not being drained.

[_Themis]

but we are seeing a draining of the swamp on both sides of the isle.

Are we? I have seen people leaving office as long as I have been alive. Everyone of them will be replaced by someone else. In order for the swamp analogy to work you have to have better replacements, and I am not seeing how that is supposed to work. The idea is that swamps are bad, yet Trump is the one of the worst people you could have as president. His election would be more of an influence to make the swamp bigger and the water more toxic.

[_Markk]

The last two posts really compliment my thoughts on another thread, see my post at 8:55.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=48473&p=1110785#p1110785

[_EAllusion]

The last two posts really compliment my thoughts on another thread, see my post at 8:55.

http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/vie ... 5#p1110785

The post in which you argue that actually Trump is a really hard worker and is doing a comparable job to other presidents, but people are just too biased to recognize that? On the one hand, I thought about replying that livetweeting Fox and Friends instead of reading briefings is not, in fact, "hard work," but on the other I decided to ignore that post because it comes from some alternative universe.

Please help me understand how appointing people with significant conflicts of interest to oversee regulatory functions constitutes "Great news. The swamp is being drained." I ask because it seems to be that "swamp" is a metaphor for corruption and that is corrupt as corrupt can be. Hence why this phrase showed up in campaign rhetoric with promises to do the exact opposite of what the Trump admin actually did.

[_Markk]

Over 1/3rd of appointments to the head of regulatory agencies in the Trump admin stand to directly financially benefit from their regulatory decisions. Virtually all have specific industry lobbying ties to the very industries they are appointed to regulate. It's the full realization of what the economist James Buchanan called regulatory capture.

Trump himself is personally profiting from the presidency in a way that is unprecedented in American history. People literally pay his companies for access to him and influence on policy. Imagine what people were fearful of with the Clinton Foundation, only significantly worse and actually happening.

This barely scratches the surface, but the it's hard to think of a time when the federal government has been more corrupt. We're witnessing something worse than Teapot Dome happening directly in front of us rather than as a scandal to be uncovered. The swamp is not being drained.

Everyone in every administrations stand to profit from holding a high office. When Trump is gone, it will be interesting to see how much his wealth has grown % wise.

How much percentage wise, has the Clinton's and Obama's wealth risen since leaving office...and take in account they do have other businesses to attribute growth too.

We can objectively test that, can you do the same with Trump? You may be right, who knows without tax returns and audits...but at this point you can't back up a word you are saying.

You appear to have so much hate for this guy you can't even be remotely objective.

[_Markk]

The post in which you argue that actually Trump is a really hard worker and is doing a comparable job to other presidents, but people are just too biased to recognize that? On the one hand, I thought about replying that livetweeting Fox and Friends instead of reading briefings is not, in fact, "hard work," but on the other I decided to ignore that post because it comes from some alternative universe.

Please help me understand how appointing people with significant conflicts of interest to oversee regulatory functions constitutes "Great news. The swamp is being drained." I ask because it seems to be that "swamp" is a metaphor for corruption and that is corrupt as corrupt can be. Hence why this phrase showed up in campaign rhetoric with promises to do the exact opposite of what the Trump admin actually did.

You seemed to ignore that I stated that the "swamp" was the status quo...which destroys your position here. Are you going to deny that the status quo is changing directly because of Trump?

Off to Palm Springs for the day, in shorts and flip flops, I 'll think of you assuming how clod it must be up there.

Take care
MG

[_EAllusion]

Everyone in every administrations stand to profit from holding a high office.

Man, I'm glad we have zealous advocates for draining the swamp like you out there. Swamp. Drained.

How much percentage wise, has the Clinton's and Obama's wealth risen since leaving office...and take in account they do have other businesses to attribute growth too.

That money comes from speaking fees and book deals rather than, you know, changing polices that are designed to promote the general welfare of the public because they will personally financially benefit from the change or because people personally paid them for the opportunity to influence their policy decisions.

In fact, the sleazy corruption around the Clintons was that they engaged in activities that had appearance of impropriety that looked like it could be a mild version of what the Trump admin is doing right out in the open. Draining the swamp is an old phrase that was meant to specifically contrast Trump's incorruptible nature due to his wealth that would be a contrast to the Clinton's reputation for this behavior. It was laughable from the second they rolled it out, but I think you have to reckon with the fact that the Trump admin has been miserable on this front.

For a perhaps more easily grasped point, the Trump admin ran heavily against Clinton's Goldman Sachs connections, which were primarily that she has received donations and speaking fees from them. This was part of what the "swamp" referred to - government actors in cahoots with the financial industry it is charged with reigning in. Then the Trump admin dotted its upper tier appointments with more Goldman Sachs connected people than any admin in history and pursued deregulatory policy decisions that are highly beneficial to Goldman Sachs interests. It was a transparently bad faith argument. If this is the "swamp" then it got a lot swampier.

We can objectively test that, can you do the same with Trump?

Trump's businesses charge people to be with Donald Trump or people in a position to influence Donald Trump. The Trump admin in turn has taken policy positions that directly benefit those people. How more objective do you need it to be?

[_EAllusion]

The post in which you argue that actually Trump is a really hard worker and is doing a comparable job to other presidents, but people are just too biased to recognize that? On the one hand, I thought about replying that livetweeting Fox and Friends instead of reading briefings is not, in fact, "hard work," but on the other I decided to ignore that post because it comes from some alternative universe.

Please help me understand how appointing people with significant conflicts of interest to oversee regulatory functions constitutes "Great news. The swamp is being drained." I ask because it seems to be that "swamp" is a metaphor for corruption and that is corrupt as corrupt can be. Hence why this phrase showed up in campaign rhetoric with promises to do the exact opposite of what the Trump admin actually did.

You seemed to ignore that I stated that the "swamp" was the status quo...which destroys your position here. Are you going to deny that the status quo is changing directly because of Trump?

Off to Palm Springs for the day, in shorts and flip flops, I 'll think of you assuming how clod it must be up there.

Take care
MG

The "swamp" wasn't just the status quo. That would reduce into the trivial statement that electing Trump will result in a change, which is necessarily true. The swamp was a specific reference to Washington D.C. corruption. That's things like lobbyists writing legislation for industries that people in Congress then pass in exchange for campaign donations and cushy positions on corporate boards once out of office. That's why it was attended with promises to reduce the power of lobbyists in government. That the Trump admin instead appointed lobbyists to its most important posts all over the place is relevant to whether swamp-draining occurred as promised.

It is true that Donald Trump has morphed the phrase "drain the swamp" form an ethics complaint into an attack on anything he objects to:

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-p ... story.html

It's now a phrase that mostly refers to crushing political opposition. But as long as you don't have severe amnesia, we can understand what the phrase actually meant. If your argument is simply that the status quo is different, that happens every single election and carries no meaning.

[_EAllusion]

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-p ... story.html

I'll post this as it seems too on point not to share:

Donald Trump long thought the phrase "Drain the Swamp" was a little hokey, he has confessed to crowds. Yet it stayed. If Frank Sinatra had to croon "My Way," even when he tired of it, Trump reasoned aloud, Trump could belt out his crowd-pleasing catchphrase.

More than a year into his presidency, Trump mouths the words a little less often. But rather than completely kill off a slogan that once rivaled "Build the Wall" in the Trump repertoire, he has done something more subversive: He has drained it of its meaning.

The motto no longer refers to Trump's promises of ethics and lobbying reforms — many of which have dropped by the wayside or been watered down — or to vows about stopping members of his administration from profiting from their service.

In recent months, Trump has rebranded the "swamp" to mean almost anything he objects to: reporters, opponents of his immigration plan, free traders, phonies, bureaucrats, politicians who vote against tax cuts.

"By ending excessive regulation, we are defending democracy and draining the swamp," Trump declared at a White House event in December where he stood by stacks of paper symbolizing government regulations. "Truly, we are draining the swamp."

Many of those regulations were repealed after high-priced campaigns by industry lobbyists, the very swamp creatures Trump railed about on the campaign trail.

"If Trump doesn't like it, it becomes draining the swamp,'" said John Kelly, who writes about language for Oxford Dictionaries, Dictionary.com and other publications. "It becomes semantically bleached in that way. It becomes its own opposite."

The shift is emblematic of a wider trend with the administration, which often seems to have adopted Humpty Dumpty's rule that a word "means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less." The words "fake news" in Trump's lexicon mean almost any story he objects to.

Earlier this week, Trump declared Democrats who didn't clap for his State of the Union speech "treasonous." And, as he's repeatedly shown, he likes to sprinkle superlatives on actions that don't measure up to labels like "the biggest" or "the best."

"It is 'Alice in Wonderland' logic," said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, a liberal advocacy group. "It's a tautology: Whatever I'm doing is draining the swamp, by definition."

The White House did not respond to questions about its use of the phrase.

Trump's most prominent supporters have cast an even wider net around the slogan. To them, stocking the courts with conservative judges now counts as swamp-draining. So does cutting taxes and shrinking the Internal Revenue Service. Donald Trump Jr. invoked the war against the swamp to defend Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James B. Comey last year.

"'Drain the Swamp' came to mean two different things," said former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who speaks frequently for Trump, and has helped expand the phrase's definition in television interviews.

One category is the "sort of K Street lobbyist-political corruption kind of swamp" that formed the basis of Trump's attacks on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, he said.

The other is "huge elements of power held by people virtually unaccountable — who basically impose their own values and prejudices with very little supervisions."

And who are they?

"Regulators, FBI agents. You name it."

Weissman and other critics point to myriad concerns over the kind of cronyism and self-dealing to which "Drain the Swamp" once referred.

This week alone, Republicans raising money for congressional seats are raffling off a weekend at Trump Winery, one of many product tie-ins ushered in during the Trump era. Trump's top public health official, Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, was forced to resign last week after she was caught trading tobacco stocks, while his top housing official, Dr. Ben Carson, faced new scrutiny over whether his son was using his dad's position to beef up business.

Mick Mulvaney, his budget director, who also runs the federal consumer protection agency, took thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the payday loan industry while serving in Congress. Under Mulaney, the agency is pulling back from enforcement efforts aimed at cracking down on predatory lenders.

Former top campaign officials have opened lobby shops. Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida has doubled membership fees to $200,000, which includes access to what the administration actively promotes as the "Winter White House." His hotel in Washington, operated in a government-owned historic building through a special lease deal, has foreign interests lining up to book rooms.

Those who seem to profit from their association with Trump have seized on alternative definitions for the swamp.

"We hear what we want to hear out of the phrase, but I think that it was geared toward the establishment of government," said Barry Bennett, a former campaign aide whose lobbying firm has several ties to Trump.

"I'm part of the change," he insisted. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

Etymologists trace "Drain the Swamp" — a metaphor for getting rid of disease-carrying mosquitoes — at least a century back. It has been used to rally Americans behind a variety of political causes: from stamping out capitalism on the far left to terrorism at the center to destroying big government on the right. The image is enriched by the legend that Washington is built over a swamp. It is not, at least mostly not, although it does get muggy in the summer.

When it entered Trump's lexicon, the phrase referred to a specific attack he was making on Clinton, an accusation that she was a leading force in a self-dealing culture, enriching herself through her political position and insulating herself from an FBI investigation through connections.

He used the slogan to roll out a series of ethics reforms that he promised would protect his administration from the opportunism that affects so many in Washington.

"When he first said 'Drain the Swamp,' the hair in the back of my neck stood up," said Eric Bolling, a former Fox News host who last year published the book, "The Swamp: Washington's Murky Pool of Corruption and Cronyism and How Trump Can Drain It."

"It was the right comment at the right time," said Bolling, a supporter who speaks on occasion with Trump.

Though his book title refers to Trump's original meaning, Bolling defines the swamp in the broader terms used by Trump's allies. To him, defeating the swamp means conquering opponents, including establishment Republicans in the "Never Trump" movement who don't support Trump's agenda.

But even the party's establishment seems to have taken a cue from Trump. In a year-end press release, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Republican from Kentucky who epitomizes the GOP mainstream, touted the party's "historic" economic accomplishment: "Draining the Regulatory Swamp."