To begin, an immutable truth. You will never defeat an enemy that you cannot define. The ‘Good Guys.’ currently led by Donald Trump, all express a hatred for, and a desire to destroy the Swamp. But if pressed for an answer to what The Swamp actually is they will give a range of answers that vary from each other to the extent of the number of people asked and many of them will be mutually exclusive.

Far easier than defining The Swamp is to state what it is not and then use that as a basis for combatting it. And in line with that thought we can start by understanding that The Swamp is not a monolithic structure complete with an established hierarchy, At its highest and most effective level it is a loose affiliation of the uber wealthy forming groups held together by temporary bonds of mutually supportive agendas. They present a cohesive front only so long as there is mutual benefit and any resistance to their activity that is harmful to one side of the bond will not effect the other, it will merely dissolve that bond. Zuckerberg without Schumer will still be Zuckerberg, the Chinese Communist Party without the Bidens will still be the Chinese Communist Party.

Fighting a monolithic structure is relatively easy. For example, we engaged the Third Reich on the battlefield in WWII. They accommodated us by all wearing the same colored suits. The guys on our side, the ones with the guns, interpreted the color of their suits as saying, “shoot me” and so they did. In all fairness the opposite was also true, we had our guys dressed in the same color giving an identical message to the enemy. Fortunately our guys managed to shoot a greater number of their guys and so we prevailed.

There is no Swamp uniform, no single identifying characteristic that sets them apart. Here we can turn to The Bible for guidance. Matthew 7:16-20, “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit…” KJV

While The Swamp is not monolithic, it is bipartisan and not confined to any social or economic class. It is a pervasive presence in every strata of society throughout the civilized world. By my definition, Parag Agrawal (Twitter) is a swamp dweller and equally so is an ordinary beat cop in Anytown USA who shakes down a local bar owner for donations to a non existent “Widow’s and Orphan’s Fund.” Only the amounts of money and assumed respectability differ.

The sole dining characteristic of swamp dwellers is that they all will use tactics that include lying, immorality, lack of ethics, bribery, class warfare, actual warfare, bigotry, hatred, foreign and domestic terrorism, a willingness to ignore the law and yes, pandemics to advance their agendas. Nothing is ever off the table for the denizens of the swamp no matter how much it harms those of us who constitute ‘collateral damage’ in their pursuits.

These are winning tactics for The Swamp because those in opposition are constrained by a need to always take the moral high road. Platitudes are not nearly as effective for swaying a Supreme Court decision on possible election fraud as is a good old fashioned BLM riot. In the past few years The Swamp’s Brown Shirts, BLM and Antifa have influenced more official decisions than any thinking person could have imagined possible.

The Swamp gave us the pandemic and it was highly effective for a time. We must learn from it, expect a sequel and be alert for the early warning signs that they are about to release its next iteration. The Swamp will abandon losing strategies but will double down on that which has worked in the past.

Sometimes I think that our swamp dwellers, especially those in government, must have listened to a routine by the late, great comedian Brother Dave Gardner in which he said, “make everything legal and you won’t have any crime at all.”

If we could ever get an Attorney General who was not a swamp dweller we might be able to make real strides toward solving the problem. I mistakenly thought we had one in Bill Barr but was disabused of that notion when I looked into his past and found that while in the employ of the CIA (Iran-Contra guns for drugs) he took the code name of ‘Robert Johnson’ apparently likening his involvement in that nefarious scheme to the famous blues guitarist of the 1920’s who claimed to have sold his soul to the Devil. CIA agents who feel that they have willingly sold their souls by taking an assignment that they think is wrong but will advance their careers do not make good AG’s. However it does help to understand some of the questionable decisions he made while he was AG. You can’t get much swampier than that.

Selective enforcement of the law, no matter the ‘justification,’ will never serve to deter criminal activity.