Next to building that great wall, the campaign promise that was sure to be raised at every fevered gathering of the great unwashed was the call to “drain the swamp”. It wasn't quite clear what the idiot meant by this, but there was a general understanding that he would wage war against the lobbyists on K-street that had so successfully stymied the will of the people.
What Disgustus didn't tell his howling herd is that the man who he introduced as the manager of his campaign was none other than the man who invented the swamp in the first place.
“During the years that followed World War II, Washington's most effective lobbyists transcended the transactional nature of their profession”, wrote Franklin Foer, in The Atlantic Magazine. “Men such as Abe Fortes, Clark Clifford, Bryce Harlow, and Thomas Corcoran were known not as grubby mercenaries but as elegant avatars of a permanent establishment, lauded as 'wise men'. Lobbying hardly carried a stigma, because there was so little of it. When the legendary lawyer Tommy Boggs registered himself as a lobbyist, in 1967, his name was only 64th on the active list. Businesses simply didn't consider lobbying a necessity. Three leading political scientists had studied the profession in 1963 and concluded: 'when we look at the typical lobby, we find its opportunities to maneuver are sharply limited, its staff mediocre, its typical problem not the influencing of Congressional votes but finding the clients and contributors to enable it to survive at all” (1)
All
this abruptly changed with the arrival of the clown from California,
late host of television's “Death
Valley Days.” After
Watergate, notes Foer, “Republican lobbyists were particularly
enfeebled. Generations of Democratic majorities in Congress had been
terrible for business.” (2)
Into
this political world stepped a new generation of political
operatives, men who had been schooled in the cesspool of the Young
Republican organization, been brought to Washington by Richard
Outhouse Nixon, and returned by the Rescumlickan electoral wave of
1980 that brought a washed-up actor to the White House along with a
Senate majority. Men like Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Lee
Atwater. Within a decade they would begin to transform the industry
into such proportions that by the time fellow Boomer Newt Gingrich
emerged as Speaker of the House, former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder
would lead a small band of Democrats up the steep steps to the roof
of the Capitol Building and hang a giant “SOLD” sign upon the
Capitol Dome. The Congress was now open for serious business.
And,
as predictable as the morning sunrise, the nation was soon knee deep
is scandal as the swamp rose from the fetid marshes of the Potomac,
down Pennsylvania Avenue and right up the steps of the Capitol
itself, with scoundrels like Jack Abramoff (3) racing to the trough
closely on the heels of the Savings and Loan Scandals (4) . By the
time the Gingrich had arrived to steal Christmas, the swamp monsters
were already well entrenched feeding off the political carcass like
the parasites they are.
As
Foer points out, the man most responsible for morphing lobbyists from
'wise men' to 'swamp monsters' was none other than the man managing
tRUMP's very own campaign, Paul Manafort. Manfort had come to
Washington, like Stone, Atwater and a host of others as a campaign
organizer. When his champion was driven from office he, like his
cohorts, moved to lobbying. These were lean years, relatively
speaking, but years in which they would make a few dollars and hone
their skills. With Reagan came a chance to get back into the major
leagues. And, sure enough, they found the suitable sponsor. With
newly acquired access to power, Manafort pioneered a new kind of
lobbying, lobbying not for particular interests, but lobbying the
very people he worked to get into office. This symbiotic
relationship, like a parasite to a host, has proved just as
endurable, and just as toxic to the political body of the nation.
But
Manafort, a resourceful lot, wasn't finished. He branched out
representing foreign nationals and foreign leaders, including some of
the most reprehensible and despicable regimes on the face of the
earth. Among these, the Russian-backed regime in the Ukraine was
hardly the worst of the lot.
These
are the people that surround our Caesar, drawn to Disgustus by the
stench of corruption like seagulls at the dump.
“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”
Impeach
and Imprison
_______________
- Foer,
Franklin. “American
Hustler, Oligarchs, Shady Deals, Foreign Money—How Paul Manafort
Helped Corrupt Washington and Laid the Groundwork For the Subversion
Of American Politics”. The
Atlantic Magazine. March 2018. Pages 62-78 See page 67
- ibid.
Page 67
- See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff_Indian_lobbying_scandal
- See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis
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