As the last days of Donald Trump’s presidency are upon us, there is much to reflect on. One question is how we got to this point, and a partial answer is the appeal of “drain the swamp.” This populist phrase encapsulated much of Trump’s anti-establishment appeal in 2016 (as it did Bernie Sanders’).
For all that has transpired since Trump first announced his candidacy back in 2015, it’s clear this message resonates with millions of Americans.
Trump campaigned saying he was beholden to no one. He told people he would finance his campaign himself. He further claimed to be the candidate of “law and order.” All of this proved to be untrue, but on its face, the message was a powerful one.
CLC has spent much of the last four years detailing and opposing the many ways that Trump did not “drain the swamp,” but rather opened the floodgates to bigger and more voracious alligators.
Trump introduced a five-point ethics plan to “drain the swamp” on the 2016 campaign trail. After taking office, Trump never mentioned the five-point plan again. It did not come anywhere close to being implemented, as CLC analysis has shown.
His administration gave unprecedented access to special interests. Former lobbyists held top jobs in his administration (e.g. former oil lobbyist David Bernhardt at Interior; former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler at EPA). They and others staffed departments with persons from the industries they regulated. This access impacted key issues, such as healthcare, environmental pollution and land use, in a way that benefitted special interests at the expense of the public interest.
Trump’s Cabinet was by far the wealthiest in modern history, and his Cabinet members had serious ethics problems and conflicts of interest, which CLC has documented. Two Cabinet members—Tom Price and Ryan Zinke—left office amid ethics investigations, in which CLC filed complaints.
To undermine accountability, Trump fired federal watchdogs, including numerous inspectors general. He and Republicans in Congress ensured the Federal Election Commission—the only agency dedicated to enforcing campaign finance laws for presidential and congressional campaigns—went without a necessary quorum for much of the 2020 election cycle, preventing it from enforcing the law. This sort of government failure enables corruption to take hold.
Trump then pardoned allies convicted of crimes, including people like Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and former Rep. Chris Collins—the first sitting member of Congress to endorse him, who pled guilty to insider trading.
Trump then worked to make it as difficult as possible for people to vote in 2020. He baselessly cast doubt on the integrity of our election systems, refused to accept the results of a free and fair election that was scrutinized and litigated more than any other election in my lifetime, pressured state legislatures and state election officials to overrule the vote of their states, publicly called on his vice president to violate the Constitution during the Electoral College count, summoned a mob to Washington, DC last week, urged it on to go to the Capitol, and “fight,” and then failed to immediately act as the seat of our democracy was violently ransacked. And he's taken no responsibility for any of it.
We need to understand how close we came to an illegitimate overturning of election results, including by Congress itself. The fact that 147 members of Congress voted to challenge Biden slates of electors is greatly disturbing.
Trump will be out of office soon, but the problems in our political system remain, and many of them were there before Trump. They will get bigger unless we act now.
We now need to do what Trump did not—ensure our government works for the American people. We need to work toward a transparent, accountable and inclusive democracy. We need to make sure voting is accessible to all who are eligible. We need to address the flaws in our Electoral College process and the Electoral Count Act of 1887 that exposed our system to the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
That's the agenda that is in front of us: moving forward to strengthen our democracy. We must continue to hold government accountable—that includes the incoming Biden Administration—and demand democracy reforms. Campaign Legal Center is committed to that.
The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center advances democracy through law at the federal, state and local levels, fighting for every American’s rights to responsive government and a fair opportunity to participate in and affect the democratic process.
