The Swamp Always Wins: Why Outsiders Break When They Enter Washington

Authored by Maureen Steele via ClashDaily.com,

They come in fists raised, eyes blazing, sleeves rolled.

They say they’ll drain the swamp, burn it down, expose the rot.

But somewhere between the campaign trail and Capitol Hill, something changes.

The American people have seen this pattern so many times, it’s practically a rite of passage. The outsider, once vowing to crack the system open, instead disappears into it. They don’t just compromise — they transform.

Consider the recent cases of Dan Bongino and Kash Patel — two of the most celebrated MAGA- era firebrands. Their reputations were built on a promise to tear down the FBI’s institutional rot. Bongino, a former Secret Service agent turned podcaster, once called the FBI “irredeemably corrupt” and demanded mass firings over the Mar-a-Lago raid. Kash Patel, known for his aggressive investigations into Russiagate and FISA abuse, promised “radical transparency” and justice for weaponized federal power.

But what happened once they entered the inner sanctum?

Bongino was appointed Deputy Director of the FBI in early 2025 by his friend Patel, now elevated to FBI Director. The appointment shocked even conservatives. According to Reuters, career FBI agents saw the move as “a slap in the face” — a political installation in what was supposed to be a neutral bureau. Instead of firing corrupt actors, Bongino defended a sweeping internal reorganization that displaced over a thousand career officials and consolidated power into a smaller, ideologically aligned inner circle.

While the public was told transparency would define the new FBI, the exact opposite occurred. Rather than releasing long-demanded Epstein documents or details from the Durham investigation, the agency under Patel and Bongino issued memos publicly debunking the existence of an Epstein client list — stunning their own base. Bongino, who had previously insisted the American people deserved the truth, now became the face of official suppression. Meanwhile, Patel focused on optics over openness. In his first week at the helm, he launched a bizarre initiative to partner FBI agents with UFC trainers to toughen them up. He prioritized deportation enforcement and violent crime statistics while gutting internal briefings and limiting transparency. The promise to “open the books” never materialized. The FBI had merely changed costumes — not character.

It isn’t just Bongino and Patel. The pattern stretches across both parties.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, who chairs the new “DOGE” subcommittee on government spending and foreign aid corruption, routinely rails against USAID and its links to nonprofits funding propaganda, gender ideology, and foreign influence. Yet as congressional records show, she voted in favor of the same omnibus bills and appropriations that continued funding those exact programs. She offered symbolic amendments — which failed — and then quietly allowed the status quo to persist. One moment she’s shocked at what’s in the spending bills. The next, she’s approving them. Where’s the oversight? Where’s the retraction of stolen taxpayer dollars? Where are the subpoenas, the clawbacks, the arrests?

On the left, the same dynamic played out with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. When she entered Congress in 2019, she was hailed as a political lightning bolt — an anti-establishment populist promising to dismantle corporate capture of the Democratic Party. She introduced the Green New Deal and vowed to use her platform to force radical accountability. But less than a year later, Vanity Fair reported that she had already become “a steady hand,” no longer using her massive social following to pressure leadership or trigger real procedural change.

By 2024, Time Magazine described her as “President Biden’s most valuable pinch-hitter” — an agent of party cohesion, not disruption. Despite her brand as a revolutionary, her tenure has been defined by political obedience and polished media appearances. Her platform remained radical, but her actions reflected adaptation, not agitation.

So what actually happens in Washington? What force is powerful enough to transform enemies of the system into defenders of it?

Some say it’s just strategy. Others whisper about kompromat. Perhaps it’s the seductive nature of access, the thrill of relevance, the pressure of personal threats. Or maybe it’s simpler: Washington is designed to absorb you. You don’t burn it down. You get pulled inside. Committee assignments are dangled. Donor money is leveraged. Staffers are replaced. Promises are diluted. And very quickly, the crusader becomes the compromiser. Those who go in demanding accountability soon start explaining “how things really work.”

The public, meanwhile, is left with a shrinking pool of options and an ever-growing swamp.

Whether it’s Bongino issuing bureaucratic press releases, Greene backing spending she says she opposes, or AOC abandoning leverage for legacy, the script is always the same. The system is not broken. It is built to break you.

If we want change in Washington, it won’t come from more outsiders entering the system.

It will come from reasserting power outside the system.

We don’t need more saviors walking into D.C. We need a citizenry that stops worshipping politicians and starts auditing them like the employees they are.

The tragedy isn’t that our heroes change when they get to Washington.

The tragedy is that we keep expecting them not to.