Donald Trump + George Carlin = We Are The Swamp

In 2016, one of Donald Trump's campaign slogans was about eliminating what he called 'The Swamp.' Of course he meant those involved in the corruption and waste that existed then, and still does, in Federal government. Though The Swamp, as Trump referred to it, is a term and concept that goes back a few decades, Trump was able to persuade his followers that it referred specifically to the Democrats and some Republicans.

The truth problem with The Swamp as Trump referred to it is that The Swamp is far bigger than Trump portrayed it to be. To find The Swamp, all we have to do is to follow the corporate lobbyists. 

Now the side of the Swamp that Trump and his followers wanted to hide were the corporations who paid the lobbyists to legally bribe our elected officials, both the Dems and the Repubs, in order to control the laws that our government passes.

And what did Trump do once he got in office? He did a misdirection play for his followers. For while he pointed to the Dems as The Swamp, his policies favored those same businesses and corporations that hire lobbyists to legally bribe our officials.

So we have The Swamp. That Swamp includes players from the private sector, such as those in charge of our businesses and corporations as well as the lobbyists and those elected officials from the public sector including many Democrats and Republicans. And when Trump was in office, it included him too.

So what does George Carlin have to do with this? It was Carlin who said that selfish, ignorant people elect selfish, ignorant leaders. Carlin stated that such was the case because our politicians from us, from American society. In other words, our elected officials are reflections of us citizens and voters. And thus if our officials are part of The Swamp, then we can be too. I can hear a revised version of the song 'We Are The World' right now. This rendition would be 'We Are The Swamp, We Are The Childish.'

I remember discussing politics with a friend and my friend made an interesting statement. They said that when the wealthy are doing all they can to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, they are simply doing what everyone else was doing. And my friend had a point. It isn't just the wealthy who are trying to make and keep as much money as they can regardless of the effects that not paying one's fair share of taxes has on the country. But here, my friend missed a vital distinction. It is one thing for a person who is just getting by to try to skip out on paying their fair share of taxes. The issue for them is survival. But the more we have, the more the issue becomes luxury and then vanity. 

I'v heard from some fellow religiously conservative Christian friends that Democracy is about making sure that your concerns are heard and, if possible, receive the greatest attention from our elected officials. That such is not a real description of Democracy is not the point. Rather the point is that the more we live for ourselves and vote for candidates solely on the basis of what they will do for us, the more we become The Swamp. Only in terms of voting, one's vote is one's currency.

That means that the more that our votes are based on a candidate's commitment to serve the interest of others, especially those who are marginalized or less fortunate, along with or even despite our own interests, the more we escape The Swamp. In fact, the more we live as people in our communities and businesses with the purpose of helping others, especially the marginalized and less fortunate, the more we are escaping The Swamp. But the more we live just for our own interests, the more we become The Swamp. That is because when we live that way, we teach others to do the same and thus produce those Democratic and Republican elected officials, and even our Presidents, who are part of The Swamp that governs us. 

Many of the occupations we depend on reflect who we are our society. Art may reflect life, but politics reflects society. If we want to get rid of The Swamp, we must first change ourselves. And, at the same time, we must demand that those who want our votes must serve the needs of others, especially the marginalized and less fortunate, along with our own needs. Living and voting in ways where we are only concerned with one's own needs, especially when we are privileged, makes us a part of The Swamp.

Rebounding From Party To Party In The Two-Party System

Some of the most recent elections indicate that the country is looking for rebound politicians. Good examples of that occurs when an election that is usually controlled by one party is actually won by candidates from the other party. Doug Jones's victory over Roy Moore for a Senate seat from Alabama and Conor Lamb's win over Rich Saccone for Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional seat are two examples of where voters were choosing rebound candidates. For it seems that many voters have been greatly disappointed by President Trump's performance And in trying to recover from that Presidential choice, rebounding voters had only one option.

George W. Bush was a rebound President for those who were the first to suffer from Clinton fatigue. And then Obama was the rebound Presidential choice for those who had had enough with Republican Presidential policies. After that, Trump was the choice not just for those who feared that liberals had too much say in our country, but also for those who had had it with the Republican establishment. And so Trump ran as the only rebound candidate for the Republican nomination. 

And needless to say, Hillary Clinton was the long awaited choice for those who were legitimately looking to rebound from the long line male Presidents. And like our two-party system, people had only one option to choose from for that rebound vote.

As things stand, it seems that the American voter is the ball in a game of pong between the Democratic and Republican Parties. The American voter rebounds with one party only to find out that they need to rebound again. And so back and forth voters go to rebound from one party's politician to another party's politician.

We could point to the two-party system for the American voter's endless need to rebound from the candidates of one party to another. And though the two-party system is very deficient, it doesn't provide the sole, or even the major, reason why we constantly go back and forth between the two parties. The major reason why we are constantly rebounding between the two political parties is because we don't want to constantly participate in our nation's political processes. As a result, we vote for the leaders whom we think we can ignore until the next election. The problem is that our choices rarely work out that way.

Our choices don't work out because the more we ignore our elected officials, the less accountable they become. The less accountable our politicians become, the more likely they will act in their own interests. And the more they act in their own interests, not only will we become disillusioned with them, the more they will be imitating us, the voters, who voted for politicians in order that we could act in our own interests.

Now the above theory doesn't answer why we have so many incumbents in Congress who are constantly reelected time and time again. There are other explanations for that. But it certainly might help explain why we keep switching between Republican and Democratic Presidents. And it also explains why the political activities of many Americans are restricted to election related activities.

Occasionally, we run into causes that move us to take time out of our busy schedules to speak out to our politicians. The March For Our Lives movement is such a movement for it has awakened many people to an important cause. And certainly reducing gun violence by passing good, effective gun control laws is a worthy cause to take a stand on. And in case some have not noticed,  the level of participation in the March For Our Lives movement is modifying some of the rhetoric and stands some of our politicians are taking. And that should tell us something. What if the American showed the same level of participation in advancing other causes as they have in the March For Our Lives movement? What would happen is that our politicians would become more accountable to us and we would gain some power over them.

There is much corruption in our political system today. Certainly, our politicians deserve some of our anger for the corruption. But the corruption is not all their fault. Some of the corruption is due to the fact that, just like art imitates life, so politicians sometimes reflect the moral values of us, their constituents. And some of the corruption is due to the fact that we think we have more important matters to attend to than to constantly hold our politicians accountable. Indeed, we do have other important matters to tend to such as caring for our families and managing our jobs and careers. But still, to not make time so that we can hold our politicians accountable for their voting records and actions is to almost ask them to get away with as much as they can. And until we are more willing to participate as citizens in the available political processes such as activism, we should expect nothing else from our elected leaders than to cheat on us.