Everyone across America is tightening their belts. The only place it hasn't happened is D.C.
Too many in Washington display a ruling class mentality, and congressional term limits would go a long way towards restoring the citizen-legislator ethos of the Founding Fathers.
Washington has become a permanent feudal class of insiders …those are people who are formally in office, staffers, journalists, hangers on … that becomes self-perpetuating … a Congress in which 42 percent become lobbyists… You have people coming here with no intention of going back to the farm.
But 'This Town' is official Washington. It's political Washington. It's not the Washington that clogs New York Avenue. It's not the Washington that lives in Gaithersburg. It's not the Washington that accounts for most of the population. 'This Town' refers to the people who think they run your country.
The establishment, rigged, cozy system inside the beltway is not America.
Think about Kennedy. Think about Carter. Think about Clinton. Think about Obama. They've all been in their forties and from outside Washington, or underdogs in one way or another. I just think that Americans are looking everywhere, saying, 'Hey, show me some authenticity. Show me somebody who's practical. Show me people who run things.'
Do you want to know what scares the Washington cartel? Actually, not remotely. I don't scare them in the tiniest bit. What scares them is you. What scares them is that old Reagan coalition is coming back together, of conservatives.
The Iraq war was always a long shot. But it was made immeasurably longer by its principal architects in Washington, including Douglas Feith, who ignored expert advice, reserved most of their effort for fighting each other in ideological battles, and regarded the Iraqi people as an afterthought.
The smartest people in Washington are the political reporters. They write about their inferiors.
It's almost impossible to be funnier than the people in Washington.
Far from being imbeciles, as the left would have you believe, Trump has assembled a Cabinet of the nation's best. This, of course, is unpalatable to the Washington elite, who only find worth in a long list of public sector titles.
One of the remarkable things about Donald Trump is that he didn't just beat the Progressive establishment - he also beat the Conservative establishment. Two political tribes that dominated Washington for half a century were defeated in the space of one election campaign.
Well, I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment, and I've learned quickly these last few days that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.
You don't make new friends in the White House.
In Washington, no one believes anything unless it comes from 'The New Yorker,' 'New York Times' editorial page, or 'The Washington Post.'
That White House Correspondents Dinner was pathetic. The rest of America is out there working our asses off while these DC assclowns throw themselves a nerdprom.”
Ronald Reagan comes out of nowhere, at least as far as these people are concerned in the establishment. I'm telling you, back in 1980, the media and the Washington-New York establishment was as disdainful of Ronald Reagan as they are of Donald Trump.
If you can sell yourself as someone who knows how Washington works, someone who has these relationships, that's a very marketable commodity. If you're seen as someone who knows how this town works, someone who is a usual suspect in this town, you can dine out for years - that's why no one leaves.
When you get out of Washington, you realize how much of a Beltway bubble exists.
Every year, the White House Correspondents' Dinner inspires two competing varieties of coverage: celebrity-obsessed fawning and angry tirades about how it represents everything twisted about our broken democracy. It doesn't, really.
Life inside the Beltway bubble dulls your thinking.
The choice could not be more clear. Americans can elect someone who literally personifies the failed establishment in Washington, D.C., or we can choose a leader who will fight every day to Make America Great Again.
I know the activists I deal with, we sort of try and check each other to make sure that we haven't gone native, that you come to Washington thinking it's a cesspool, you don't want to end up thinking it's really a hot tub and getting used to it. So that's something one has to keep an eye on all the time.
Many reporters, when they go to work in the nation’s capital, begin thinking of themselves as participants in the political process instead of glorified stenographers.
Clinton feels a profound alienation from the Washington culture here, and I happen to agree with him.
