Drain the Swamp? Hardly!

So much of the noise emanating from the Presidential candidates can be summarized as simplistic, sometimes harsh and divisive, but nearly always nebulous cliches. “Build a wall;" “lock her up;" “have the wealthy pay their share;" “repeal and replace;" and “drain the swamp."

Of all the cliches – both from the left and the right – the one that caught my attention near the end of the campaign was a mid-October pronouncement from candidate Trump promising that one of the first items on a President Trump agenda will be to “make our Government honest again [...] by draining the swamp.”

The phrase “drain the swamp," as it applies to Washington DC and politics, although a new term to many voters, has actually been around for quite a while. Democrats talked of “draining the swamp,” in 2005 and 2006, when Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress as well as the White House. In the 1980s, President Reagan wistfully pledged to drain the swamp of big government.

Somehow when candidate Trump, the epitome of an outsider non-politician, pledges to “drain the swamp,” there was a chance, a slight chance, that just maybe a Trump presidency would curtail some of the overwhelming political and legislative influence of big donors and corporate lobbyists. Although there was much about the Trump candidacy with which I disagreed, there were things I liked and supported – his priorities of jobs and rebuilding our infrastructure. So too, I agreed on the need to "drain the swamp."

In a change election, which this was, nothing symbolizes change more in Washington than making sure that the powerful special interests are not running wild influencing over an incoming President’s political and legislative agenda.

Fat chance on this one. Everywhere I turn in Washington this past week I encounter lobbyists and "big political fundraisers" boasting of their role and influence during this transition. I’ve seen this movie before.

I believe a President Trump may surprise a lot of us in how he governs and what he is able to accomplish. I also want to believe that much of President-elect Trump’s harsh campaign rhetoric was just that . . . rhetoric.

Though, I was hoping, that just maybe, a political outsider could breach the powerful special interest's grip on Congress and throughout Washington. The early signs are that I am wrong and that changing the way Washington does business will remain simply a well worn cliche.