February 17, 2025
Trump/Musk are Draining the Swamp in the Wrong Way
Philip Kotler
I have no problem supporting the draining of the swamp. We need to reform government and remove waste and corruption in government.
Yes, the U.S. has been spending too much money in questionable areas and allowing some inexcusable corruption to occur in some government agencies. The Pentagon can’t account for 63% of nearly $4 trillion in assets. The Department of Defense buys parts and equipment it doesn’t need because it can’t keep track of the parts and equipment it already owns. The military is spending more on adding old warfare assets instead of investing in new unmanned technologies. The U.S. has given more foreign aid with some of it never reaching the intended recipients. More aid needs to come from other countries and fraud has to be removed. Too many U.S. representative and senators vote for unnecessary projects so that they can look good in their own districts.
However, I can’t accept the way Trump and Musk are draining the swamp. They are using no discrimination in firing hundreds of thousands of federal workers. They are using a sledge hammer rather than a scalpel in determining who to terminate. We are witnessing a crazy bull in a China shop destroying everything of value. In the first three weeks, Trump and Musk have:
- Fired good FBI agents
- Fired good civil servants and jettisoned the whole Civil service system
- Fired good American experts managing foreign affairs in the State Department
- Fired some scientific staff in the Center for Disease Control who are trying to prevent major diseases from occurring
- Fired inspector generals whose very role is to investigate and report on potential wrongdoing, waste, and abuse and to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
- Blocking good reporters and journalists who criticize him
Trump/Musk acts as if there is no Congress, no court system, and no legal system to stop them. Never before has a U.S. President tried to take down the whole U.S. government.
Wouldn’t it be better to move slower with dedicated teams of Republicans and Democrats agreeing on the areas of swamp to clean. Democrats are as interested as Republicans in removing waste, fraud and incompetence.
Clearly Trump/Musk have more in mind than just draining the swamp. They are aiming to destroy liberal thinking and “wokeness”. They are aiming to enfeeble the Democratic Party so that there is only one party (as in China). They want full control of American society. They say that they want to kill the “administrative state” and its regulations and regulators. But they will only end up producing their own “administrative state.”
A Little History
The idea behind “draining the swamp” is that a swamp is “worthless land filled with biting mosquitos” that has to be converted into “useful land”.
Republican Ronald Reagan in 1982 told his followers: “I’m here to drain the swamp of over-taxation, over-regulation and runaway inflation that has dangerously eroded our free way of life.” Then in 2016, Republican Donald Trump promised to rid Washington D.C. of corruption and bureaucracy. In 2021, a conservative commentator Eric Bolling published The Swamp to develop an action plan to fight the “murky pool of corruption and cronyism” in Washington, D.C. In the same year, U.S. Representative Warren Davidson prepared a Drain the Swamp Act that would move federal agencies headquarters outside of Washington D.C.
To better understand Republican firings in the first three weeks of the new administration, we need to know about Project 2025. It provides a roadmap for “the next conservative President” to “downsize the federal government and fundamentally change how it works,” including the tax system, immigration enforcement, social welfare programs and energy policy, and particularly those designed to address climate change. The 2025 project also addresses the “culture war” dividing the country. Project 2025 calls for abolishing the teaching of “‘critical race theory’ and ‘gender ideology’” in public schools, and “deleting” terms such as “diversity, equity and inclusion,” “gender equity,” and “reproductive health” from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant … and piece of legislation that exists.”
Needed Action Plan
We still need to drain the swamp. Trump/Musk, however, decided to use illegal and dictatorial tools to accomplish radical regime change. They canceled funding that Congress had passed and they hassled courts to get their way. U.S. citizens are in the midst of witnessing the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. Considerable damage has already been done to millions of honest citizens and institutions. We are all waiting for the Supreme Court to render its opinion of the events. We may even have to wait for the military to show its belief in our democracy and possibly stop or arrest Trump and Musk from going further. Yes, the swamp should be drained in the right way with broad political and public agreement.
Trump and Musk are using the label, Drain the Swamp, to get credit for a good cause. But their effort is driven by mixed motives, mostly opportunistic and for power grabbing. Their agenda is inherently corrupt and revenge seeking. It is not about real reform.
