Great minds think alike. Here was mine, thinking aloud in Chapter 3 of my paradigm-shattering 2009 book We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism:
The practical, provincial, farmers and merchants of the founding era have given way to a professional political class. Here are the announced members of Barack Obama’s cabinet as at early March 2009: …
I then proceeded with a list of those cabinet members, with a very brief—five words or less—résumé of each. Those résumés read thus:
Government lawyering
Lawyering, politics
Lawyering, politics
CIA, Mil-Int
Education bureaucracy (never taught)
Research physicist, academic
Politics
Lawyering, politics
Bureaucracy
Lawyering, politics
Racial lobbying
Politics
High school teaching, politics
Lobbying, bureaucracy, diplomacy, tax ”forgetfulness”
Military
Well, here’s another great mind: Vince Coyner, proprietor of the Gratitude for America website. Here was Coyner, June 10th, posting at American Thinker. Headline: The Swamp’s Rational Hatred for Trump.
Yes, they hate Trump, and for good reason, says Coyner. He supports his case with a list of Swamp critters, their ages and their résumés. I can’t give you much of the list, but it starts like this:
Nancy Pelosi, 84, has spent 47 years in politics. She was a political science major and has no experience in the private sector.
Chuck Schumer, 73, has spent 49 years in politics. He is a lawyer with no private-sector experience.
Hakeem Jeffries, 53, has spent 17 years in politics. He is a lawyer with no private-sector experience.
Joe Biden, 81, has spent 50 years in politics. He is a lawyer with no private-sector experience.
Bernie Sanders, 82, has spent 53 years in politics. He is a political science major who had held a smattering of odd jobs before joining the government.
Adam Schiff, 63, has spent 38 years in politics. He is a lawyer with no private-sector experience.
And on and on and on. It’s not just Democrats, either. A couple more from the list:
Mitch McConnell, 82, has spent 50 years in politics. He is a lawyer with no private-sector experience.
Kevin McCarthy, 59, has spent 37 years in politics. He has an MBA. His private sector experience was limited to selling sandwiches from his uncle’s yogurt shop during college.
And so on. Coyner then goes on to contrast these Swampsters and their résumés with Donald Trump and his. His conclusion:
The last time Trump was president, he said he would drain the Swamp. He didn’t. The truth is, he had no idea how deep or wide the Swamp was and is. Most of us didn’t. Now he does, and we do. This time, he’ll be under no illusions about what he’s up against and, ideally, will act accordingly. The Swamp rats know that. They see the writing on the wall. And it terrifies them.
Leaving aside the fact that swamps don’t have walls to write on, I hope Vince Coyner is right.
