Until His Most August, Benevolent, and Legendary Celestial Majesty, the God-Emperor of Mankind, Donaldus Triumphus Magnus Astra*, came along and completely overturned the apple-cart of the political establishment, we never really had a good term to describe the way that the unelected bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., runs the country into the ground.

Since his ascension to the Cherry Blossom Throne, though, we have a rather apt and apposite term for those very same people.

We call them “The Swamp”.

And if you want to know how The Swamp works and thinks, all you have to do is watch clips from a truly hilarious pair of linked British sitcoms, Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister:

Sir Humphrey Appleby is, indeed, the living, breathing embodiment of The Swamp. That is how the swamp creatures operate – through distraction, diversion, and deception. Give them a policy position, let them chew on it and digest it and process it into a paper that then gets passed down through the system, and you will eventually find that what you originally said is now on the record as exactly the opposite.

That partly explains how and why the God-Emperor can make specific policy proclamations about reducing immigration, cutting welfare spending, bringing back troops from the endless and pointless “savage wars of peace”, and generally putting America first – and wake up three months later and realise that the reverse of what he said, is what has been enacted.

No wonder he is so frustrated, and spends so much time “shooting from the lip”, as it were, and no wonder his Administration has a turnover rate for some posts of upwards of 70% per year.

Now, consider the fact that the Federal bureaucracy numbers, very roughly, about 3 million (not including the military and civilian contractors, etc.) in the Executive branch of the US government alone.

The Law of Bureaucratic Large Numbers states, in simplified form, that in any large bureaucratic organisation:

• 20% are totally useless and, if not criminally incompetent, then damned close, and should be fired outright;
• 40% are merely average performers who show up, punch a clock, and sleepwalk through their days;
• 35% are at least somewhat competent but are desperately trying to undo the cock-ups of the lower 60%;
• And a mere 5% are actually getting things done.

Now combine this basic reality with Robert Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics:

1. Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
2. Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
3. The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.

The Second and Third Laws, combined with the LBLN above, explain perfectly why the swamp works the way it does.

The Executive Branch of the US Federal government is supposedly controlled by the President. But it acts slowly and stupidly, and generates outcomes that are quite a lot of the time diametrically opposed to what the POTUS himself actually wanted and said. And the Executive branch has NEVER been defined as explicitly right-wing – it isn’t supposed to be. It’s supposed to be impartial.

Now add in a liberal (pun intended) sprinkling of Sir Humphreys all throughout the Executive branch – all concentrated in that 5% or so of people who aren’t totally incompetent, generally useless, utter morons, or involved in fixing the mistakes of the incompetent, useless, and moronic, because those characters always know what they’re doing.

And now you will understand exactly why The Swamp is so damned lethal.

The only way to get rid of it is by tearing down the entire bureaucracy and starting all over again.

This is flat-out impossible, not least because it would result in the complete paralysis of the country.

(On further reflection, this is not a Bad Thing. Less interference by the Federal government in local and personal affairs strikes me, as well as most of a conservative bent, as a Very Good Thing.)

It sounds like a great idea to those of us on the Hard Right – and in many ways it is. But the reality is that the machinery of government is necessary and needs to run, however badly.

That does not mean that there is no way to drain the swamp. It can be done. But it takes a lot of very hard work – just like draining a real swamp – because it requires cutting off the flow into the swamp, and flushing out the worst of the swamp creatures, and chlorine-bombing whatever is left, repeatedly, until nothing grows there again.

This is very, very, very hard to do.

Turning to the God-Emperor’s efforts to drain the swamp, it should now be clear why he seems to be doing such a bad job. He actually isn’t. It’s just that the swamp has grown so great, and so terrible, that even draining off a tiny bit is something of an accomplishment – but it’s nowhere near enough.

The firing of John “Bomber Man” Bolton, for one thing, was a very good start. That is a signal to the rest of the neoclowns who have burrowed themselves deep into the machinery of government that they are not welcome.

Unfortunately, they know full well that time is on their side. All they have to do is outlast the God-Emperor and wait until he leaves office – and when he is, inevitably, replaced by either a Daemoncrat or a GOPe Republicuck, they will find themselves right back in power.

The only way to destroy their hold on power for good is, I repeat, to get rid of the lot. And the only way to do that is to end the existence of the United States of America as a de jure nation.

Again, I DON’T WANT THIS. The collapse and dismemberment of the USA into various constituent nations that more accurately reflect its current racial and ideological divides would be a disaster of the worst kind, for both Americans and the world.

But it is inevitable at this point. It will happen. There is no way around it. And I believe that it will happen within our lifetimes.

Meanwhile, the swamp will continue to fester, and the God-Emperor will, in my opinion, continue to do his best to drain it. I wish him every possible success in that endeavour. It is essential for the sake of the true American nation, which still exists in what we call these days “Trumpland”, that he succeeds. I truly hope that he does, though he is fighting a nearly impossible battle.

The only way to do it, though, is to exterminate every last one of those Sir Humphrey Applebys who now gum up the works with every oleaginous utterance, every effusion of word-fog, every bit of pompous pedantry, within the Federal government.

*I am well aware that my Latin is absolutely horrid. If we were to be accurate with our nicknames and superlatives, the correct full title for His Celestial Majesty would be: Donaldus a Triumphante Magna, Et Stellas. I trust that the anoraks and Latin scholars among you (considerable overlap) will overlook the many flagrant and repeated abuses of the language. It’s not like anyone speaks it anymore, after all.