Has everyone given up on draining the swamp in D.C. It was one of President Trump’s campaign promises in 2016. I had my doubts as the Swamp is deep and well-stocked with critters of all sizes and stripes. And, not all had a D stamped on their forehead. As I watched President Trump appoint people to various positions, if I was unfamiliar with them, I researched them to the best of my ability. It looked to me like the vast majority of them had baggage from years of playing the system.

Then I remembered what General Flynn had advised. Start in your own backyard. City Council, School Board, County Board of Supervisors, State Senators and Representatives. To that I would add, your judges at every level and Law Enforcement. It takes time and a little effort to check out the background of people running for these positions. Some are running for positions for the first time. You just have to do the best you can. Pay attention to how they conduct themselves once in office.

Has that person run a business in the area? Talk to people. Ask questions. If someone is crooked, that is hard to hide. A good example for me would be my former dentist. I had an opportunity to the see the integrity he employed in his dental practice. I’ve never forgotten that. So, when I saw him running for office, County Board of Supervisors, after he retired, I was happy to show my support by campaigning and voting for him. I have no doubt that his ethical behavior will be a benefit to all of us.

If the person has held office before, it isn’t that difficult to find out how they conducted themselves while in that position. How did they vote on issues important to you? We need to vote in the best people we can find. Conversely, we need to vote out those we can’t trust. If we can’t find the time to do that, we’ll get what we deserve. We actually had a city council member who was selling his prescription drugs to high school kids. He was history once we found out about it. How he avoided jail time, I will never know. But, I would bet he won’t try to run for office in our area again.

Don’t complain about how the country is falling apart if you aren’t willing to get involved. It is falling apart partly due to lack of attention. That is how we got to where we are today. Apathy. I don’t know if it is in the Book of Mental Illness, but if it isn’t, it should be. Part of that is not our fault, as the plan was to lull us to sleep with lots of gadgets, sports, soap operas and sit-coms. Well, you get the idea. What was it that Thomas Jefferson said?

“We in America do not have government by the majority---We have government by the majority who participate...All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

Isn’t that exactly what we have now? While we slept, while we were preoccupied with our life, the Marxists/communists/socialists came in and restructured our country. And not for the better. We paid little attention to who was in power, they likely would be replaced when their term ended. But, except for president, their term never seemed to run out. The Founding Fathers really screwed up there. The idea of term limits didn’t occur to them because that isn’t how they operated. The Constitution mandates that Congress show up at least once in a year. Why was that? Because the early Congress people had real jobs back home. The idea of sucking the government teat forever hadn’t occurred to them yet. Not enough lawyers to fill the halls of Congress yet?

Whatever the reason, we seem to have had our share of career politicians at various levels of government. I used to wonder why the people of those districts or states kept voting for the same people, and yet they often didn’t seem to be that popular back home. I think the 2020 election and midterms answered that question. When you control the votes and do the counting, have machines that switch votes the way you want, of course the same people will be in there indefinitely.

California is a good example. Aren’t you suppose to live in the district you are representing? Yet Maxine Waters lives outside her predominately poor, black neighborhood, in the rich white section of town. She doesn’t seem to hate white folks when it comes to where she will live. Then why do the people in her district keep voting her in? Hmm, would it be those unreliable voting machines, mules stuffing ballot boxes and leftist propaganda?

These are the kind of people we need to vote out. And I am tired of hearing people yapping about term limits. Guess who has to vote that into law? The very people who enjoy a lifetime of being a career politician, with all of the perks that go with it. That’s a pretty good gig if you can snag it. Of course the place to start is local, county, state and then federal. But, until we get rid of the machines and go back to paper ballots, we are just urinating into the wind. Sorry, but that is the sad truth.

Another example is the U. S. Congresswoman from our area. I had campaigned for her for years, through several defeats. Finally she was able to ride the Republican wave...er...trickle into Congress. After her rousing speech to her supporters about how strong she was for the second amendment, the very first thing she did upon arriving in D.C. was to vote yes on a red flag gun law. Say what? Does she not know that how a person in the House and the Senate vote is public knowledge? Even I can be fooled. And, I pay attention. But you will only fool me once. I will never vote for her again and will loudly campaign against her next time. Voting for the lesser of two evils is how we got this well-stocked swamp in the first place.

Haven’t you noticed, how every election cycle, especially in the primary for the general election, the Swamp picks a Democrat and a Republican that they want in office. They already know who they want. But, actually either will be acceptable. Was it in 2015 I predicted it would be Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush? Not that Bush had a ghost of a chance against Hillary when it came to the election. But as far as the Swamp was concerned, either would have been acceptable.

The chosen ones then pretend to hate each other although a few minutes of checking would reveal that they party together; their children or grandchildren go to the same elite schools. It’s kind of like the prosecutor, defense attorneys and judges locally. All play-acting, like they can barely stand each other. Yet out of the court house, they are best buds at the Country Club. It’s the same in the D.C. Swamp. Which is why most Democrats, and not a few Republicans went after Trump. He was a joke, a buffoon! No way could he win. Even though the Dems cheated as they usually do, it wasn’t enough to out vote the American people, most of whom had had enough of the Swamp’s shenanigans. As for Trump, I don’t think he had any idea how wide and deep the Swamp really was.

So, Trump could try to drain the Swamp. He could fire one Swamp critter after another only to replace them with one just as bad or worse. Watching one Swamp critter after another walk through the halls of Justice, Congress and the White House, was pretty disheartening. Who in the world was advising him on who to pick? Mark Meadows? Mike Pence? That is why they took General Flynn out as fast as they could. I suspect Flynn’s built in bullshit meter is finely calibrated. So, back to Flynn’s advice. Start on your home turf and make the best choices you can.

I may not live long enough to see the D.C. Swamp drained, but I can have a hand in draining the little backwater areas of local, county and state. Good luck in your area.