Trump’s Attempt to ‘Drain the Swamp’ Will Make Matters Worse in Washington

Lee Drutman wrote for the Los Angeles Times about President-elect Trump's pledge to remove career politicians from Washington:

 As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump pledged to oust special interests from government by promising to “drain the swamp” in Washington. These three words may make for a clever chant. But Trump’s key proposals — hiring freezes for the federal workforce, term limits for Congress and a few cosmetic lobbying bans —are to ending corruption what bloodletting and leeches are to healing the sick. They won’t work, and they only make matters worse. 

In the Trump narrative, Washington is broken because of career politicians and lobbyists, and if we remove those players, surely we will remove the corruption. Trump himself supposedly proves this fantasy: He ran a bare-bones campaign as an outsider free from special interests, with virtually no experienced policy advisers.

Yet upon winning, Trump immediately turned to the very same lobbyists he had attacked. When confronted on “60 Minutes” about his decision to rely on lobbyists in his transition efforts, Trump acknowledged a reality of Washington policymaking: “That’s the only people you have down there.” And when he then tried to change course by prohibiting registered lobbyists from helping out, some of the lobbyists simply deregistered. This highlights the comic futility and worthlessness of such bans: They’re very easy to get around.