The pendulum and the pit

“Right here, boys! Right here! Get your cake, pie, dill pickles, and ice cream! Eat all you can! Be a glutton! Stuff yourselves! It’s all free, boys! It’s all free! Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!” —Voiceover in Walt Disney’s Pinocchio (1940)

Greeley, the 2-year-old we brought home from the dog pound just before Christmas, shows signs of having been abused by his last owner. He’s loving, but he startles easily if a person comes up behind him. Sometimes he lies on his back in a “paws up, don’t swat” posture.

Some conservatives who come to Washington become like Greeley. Some have faced enough liberal criticism over the years to make them wary, but D.C. attacks feel like electrocution. Others lionized in their home states face the shock of not being invited to the right cocktail parties.

Both kinds have their character tested in Washington, since they have an easy way to become heroes in The Washington Post (WaPo): Just move left, especially on issues like abortion, and enter the inner ring. Justice Anthony “Flipper” Kennedy is a prime example of responding to the call of the styled.

Character will be crucial in Washington as Donald Trump motors toward the completion of his first 100 days in office. So far he has one big win and one big loss, and the aftereffects of both will give Christian conservatives much to watch and pray for over the next several years.

The win was the confirmation of new Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who in Colorado showed the ability to resist peer pressure from other legal whizzes and mediacrats. Evangelicals who reluctantly voted for Trump will hold their breath as the court takes on cases involving religious liberty and abortion.

The loss concerned replacement of Obamacare. Pundits are wondering what kind of deal President Trump might next attempt. Fareed Zakaria of the WaPo and CNN hopes Trump will return to his praise (in The America We Deserve, Renaissance Books, 2000) for Canada’s nationalized, single-payer, no-competition system: “I’m a conservative on most issues but a liberal on this one.”

Kevin Williamson of National Review argues that “great negotiator” Trump was “humiliated” on healthcare and now faces “the inevitable temptation to ‘grow in office.’ … Trump being Trump, nobody knows where he’ll be politically the day after tomorrow, but … he was never a conservative.”

Some pundits want the president to fail, but since the election I have not been anti-Trump. I’m pro-America and pray, for the good of the country, that the only president we’ve got will succeed. When Trump, though, says “drain the swamp,” I suspect he has chosen the wrong metaphor.

It’s appropriate in a literal sense: Part of Washington is built on a swamp. During the Civil War the ground north of the Capitol that now supports and surrounds Union Station was a center of alcoholism and prostitution known as Swampoodle. The Washington Nationals baseball club from 1886 through 1889 played at 6,000-capacity Swampoodle Grounds.

But “drain the swamp” as metaphor has a convoluted history. Socialists early in the 20th century called Washington and New York a “capitalist swamp.” They demanded drainage and said killing a few of its mosquitoes was insufficient. We run the risk of dehumanizing people when we think of them as swamp denizens.

I’d propose a different term for Washington: Pleasure Island, the theme park in Disney’s Pinocchio. The purportedly good news for boys: On the island they get drunk, break windows, draw on the Mona Lisa, and do whatever else they sinfully desire, free of the law or any adult supervision. The bad news: Pleasure Island is a trap, for as the boys act like jackasses, they dehumanize themselves and turn into donkeys.

Since the Pinocchio story originated as an Italian newspaper serial in 1881, it was not about Republicans turning into Democrats, but today’s Washington ethos is like the come-on when the boys arrive at Pleasure Island. Barack Obama’s first year in office brought an $831 billion stimulus package that stimulated government jobs—Stuff yourselves! It’s all free, boys!—but probably prevented or killed more business employment, while shooting up the national debt.

Will President Trump’s first year end up similarly? If changing D.C. culture were a technical feat like draining a swamp, it would be relatively easy: People don’t want to live in swamps. Pleasure Island, though, seems like fun, until the bill comes: As the whip-cracking coachman in Pinocchio tells a boy-becoming-donkey who pleads for mercy, “You boys have had your fun. Now pay for it.”

Along with recording what happens to Obamacare and the federal deficit, WORLD will watch the trend in our political system generally. Doesn’t it seem that the pendulum is taking wider swings each time White House control or legislative power shifts? See how the Senate has gone from requiring 67 votes to cut off a filibuster, to 60, to 51 for some judicial appointments, to 51 for Supreme Court nominees as well.

Will a bare majority soon be all that’s needed for every piece of legislation? If so, the pendulum will swing even wider, and we may end up in a pit. Paws up, Greeley?