In every conversation I had with Trump supporters at his rallies during the election, one impulse kept surfacing: drain the swamp.
It was a powerful feeling that government was broken, that the economy was not delivering the goods, that mainstream politics had failed – and that working people had been left behind. In their eyes, the “swamp” is Washington itself, seen as an interest group of its own, a self-regarding, self-sustaining elite of apparatchiks, divorced from reality, scratching each other’s backs.
That was the rationale for voting for an insurgent like Trump. An outsider. A maverick. A straight talker. Someone who breaks the rules and might in turn break the logjam. A businessman offering anything but business as usual. It is why Elon Musk, also a maverick outsider, became a credible figurehead in some people’s eyes, seen as fit to lead Trump’s push to cut $2 trillion dollars from the federal budget.
For the left this is tricky territory. There is a fear that if we criticise institutions or the role of the state then we are colluding in the push for small government or the undermining of democracy. The result is we have become the defenders of the old political playbook, traditional political norms, and historical institutions. This is laudable on one level. If we won’t defend democracy, who will? But with it comes a trap. We attach ourselves to failure; we alienate ourselves from the public.
This is what happened in the Brexit campaign when pro-Europeans appeared to blindly defend a Europe that had become increasingly sclerotic and out of touch. And how can any of us who are motivated by social justice defend a British state – national and local – that has presided over such a roll call of shame that includes Hillsborough, infected blood, the Post Office, Windrush and Grenfell Tower?
All of these scandals point to a collective failure of administration, of process, of politics and of respect. Each in turn shed new light on bureaucratic incompetence, buck-passing, and contempt for the voiceless. Hand on heart, can any of us say with certainty that the lessons have been learnt, that a repeat performance is less likely? And these incidents are the flash points of a deeper malaise: for too many citizens the state disempowers and disrespects. For too many trying to run a service or a business, government policy is clunky, badly informed, over-centralised, rushed, performative – and most of all, frustrating.
I can testify as a former headteacher that one of my main roles was to make sense of, ignore, work around or push back on a lot of pointless or damaging diktats from central government. On startlingly rare occasions, there was policy that added value. This is a common complaint across sectors. It’s the arrogance of policy makers and politicians who believe they can cook up policy in Whitehall, with scant regard for people who might know what they are talking about, and then impose it with a media blitz, success measured by the quantity of headlines not the quality of outcomes.
When I asked William Galston, author of Anti Pluralism: The Populist Threat to Liberal Democracy, for the reasons for Trump’s rise he said, “I can explain it in one word: performance.” The performance of government in the US for more than 20 years has been inadequate, he said. This goes beyond delivery. It is about unnecessary wars, broken promises, an economic crash, a failure to do the simple things well. When government performance is so bad for so long, the populists have fertile ground to exploit. In democracies across the West, is time for the Left to acknowledge: there is a swamp, and it does need draining.
Working for Keir Starmer in the run up to the election, we debated which adjective would be most appropriate for describing the kind of state that we wanted to build – the catalytic state, the enabling state, the active state, the entrepreneurial state, the decisive state. But implicit in all these phrases is the premise that the state can make a positive difference to people’s lives. I don’t think we can assume people think that anymore.
Politics will only be rehabilitated if this belief is restored intentionally and systematically, because it’s difficult and takes time. That is why Starmer’s mission-led government is so important. The ambitious goals the missions represent – faster growth, clean power by 2030, halving knife crime – were only part of the story. The real power of the missions comes from what they imply about the reinvention of government. For the missions to be a success, they will require massive decentralisation, digitisation, the breaking down of departmental silos, the reform and renewal of an unmodernised civil service, the creation of a culture of innovation, and a relentless focus not on passing legislation but making real change for the public.
Most of all, the missions can be an engine for rebuilding trust in politics. But only if they are done with people and not just for people. They need to empower citizens and communities and build a sense of common purpose – a national project of renewal. The missions were never couched in the language of “draining the swamp”– colourful populist language is not really Starmer’s style. But the intention is potentially as far-reaching.
There is a danger that the wrong lesson is taken from the American election, or at least a partial one. Delivering on a few salient issues for working people like NHS waiting lists, small boats and cost of living is obviously important. But it is neither sufficient nor any guarantee of re-election. And reducing the project of government to something this transactional would miss the lessons from Trump’s victory. What needs to underpin any governing project is the rehabilitation of an important idea (and winning the battle of ideas at a time like this is essential) that government can be a force for good. That it can be trusted once more to lift up those who feel smothered by a remote bureaucracy and ignored by politicians they see as interchangeable.
The chance of Trump draining the swamp is remote. The left should embrace the idea. And do it properly.
[See also: Postliberalism redux]
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