DRY SWAMPS CAN’T BE DRAINED
On Trump’s Wasteland
By Dustin Mabry
“Drain the swamp they live in, and that means dealing not only with the terrorists, but those who harbor terrorists. This will take a long, sustained effort.” — Donald Rumsfeld, September 18, 2001
The trump administration has presented the U.S. as a vast arena of disaster, both on the level of the nation and within the world of politics itself. His team has created a vast Wasteland in dire need of intervention and improvement. This is not new politics: The Wasteland has is alive in efforts of war and imperialism throughout the world.
Yet the story I tell here is a hopeful one, for it offers an road for resistance: In the Wasteland, thriving becomes a political project. People show up at airports to release detainees. People will continue to live, be heard, and be seen. We can, and we must, refuse Trump’s Wasteland with a deep and enduring proclamation of life.
Using a bit of history, I begin with a brief review of Trump’s attempt to build the Wasteland with focus on his rhetoric surrounding inner cities, U.S. infrastructure, and torture. I follow this with a quick history of the Wasteland, with focus on its necessary condition of “improvement.” I then look at some contemporary struggles to highlight the ubiquitous presence of the Wasteland, and finish by thinking of the way out of this terrible mess.
Inner Cities
Trump has been unleashing a rant about how terrible inner-cities are for some time. This rant became a near hallmark of his campaign, with a special focus on Chicago. If one was to learn about city life through the eyes and mouth of Trump, it is a bastion of evil. At the very least, inner city Chicago is a whirlwind of bullets and blood.
His painting of such a picture is an effort in the creation of a Wasteland. What’s left of the inner city is a brooding landscape of muck and mire, a wasteland of empty dreams and absolute violence. So bad, in fact, that even Trump could do something about it. Remember his big promise? “You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed — what the hell do you have to lose?”[1]
Indeed the Wasteland always involves a promise of improvement. One comment came in during the second “debate” between himself and Hillary Clinton on Oct. 9th 2016. Trump offered “Education-wise. Job-wise. Safety-wise. In every way possible, I’m going to help the African-Americans, help the Latinos, Hispanics. I am going to help the inner cities.”
Infrastructure
Another feature of Trump’s Wasteland comes to fruition through his critique of U.S. infrastructure. In the Trump wasteland, the country is crumbling, “We have a country that needs new roads, new tunnels, new bridges, new airports, new schools,” while U.S. airports were “third-world countries.”[2]
Trump worked to create a vision of the U.S. which foregrounded the crumbling of the very underbelly which keeps the whole thing going. The notion of Infrastructure has its own history, with roots in the hearts and minds of the working class. Infrastructure is what creates and maintains good jobs. Perhaps America was Great during the days of massive infrastructure projects like the New Deal? The image is of an efficient country full of jobs. Real tangible evidence we were the best in the world.
Beyond this, infrastructure has deep meaning in the story of progress, in that infrastructure is only “not crumbling” when it is built to last. If a freeway system is going to crack tomorrow, it is already dead. In this sense, infrastructure is pre-emptive; it is something which is always known through its ability to solve problems located in an imagined future. A crumbling infrastructure is a process. It is a sure road to an event horizon full of disaster in need of prevention. Preventing the infrastructure fall-out saves the day.
Torture
In his “first interview,” (Jan 25th 2017) Trump declared the need to “fight fire with fire” and “bring back” torture techniques such as “waterboarding” and torture in the great effort to secure the world against terrorists. [3] Of course, prisons throughout the U.S. engage in torture practices through long-term solitary confinement, and in this sense torture is nothing new to the U.S., a practice which includes torturing its own citizens.
Yet, the creation of a world in need of torture is part of the Trump Wasteland. In this land, there exists a great dearth of tactics available to the State to fulfill its great duty of defense and protection. A barren land without torture is a problem here, for it is through warfare (by any means) that States hope to secure its power position in geopolitical affairs.
By suggesting the need to re-instate CIA black sites, and practices well known as torturous around the world such as Waterboarding, Trump offers a fix to the torture-less vacuum. Making the lack of torture a problem is the very bread and butter in the making of the Wasteland, a place to improve.
But For Real
In some important ways, Trump is right to point out perilous conditions faced across the United States. Millions of people have had their livelihoods stripped and replaced by precarious employment or worse. Ever drive through rural Oklahoma, Louisiana, Oregon, or California? It’s rough out there. Ever live or work in an inner cities? Pretty rough in there, too.
Yet, one of the problems here is that Trump doesn’t deal in Wastelands to sympathize…or make them better. The wasteland exists in his own working conditions.[4] Given he spends his life trying to create exclusive wealth and power, his improvement plans may only exacerbate the very conditions he claims to fix, a process which is an old story for those in the Wastelands.
Brief History of the Wasteland
The Wasteland is not just a place, and definitely not just a Trump tactic. It is a constructed imaginary within various political, economic, and environmental agendas, and it’s been around for a very long time.
One resource I will use here is Vittoria di Palma’s Wasteland: a History. In it, Di Palma describes the centrality of Wastelands, as ideas and as actual places, in the context of English struggles over land and sustenance in the 17th century, with implications for colonizing efforts throughout the world.
In the 17th century English case, there were great efforts to privatize common lands, the commons, upon which commoners lived and this was met with resistance. A key instance of resistance was led Gerrard Winstanley and his “Diggers,” and yes this is motivation for 60’s movement and an influencing force in the history of anarchist philosophy and organizing.
Without diving (or digging) too deep here, the Diggers sought to claim uncultivated land in order to establish a life based on cooperation and peace. These “Wast Lands” were to be farmed and kept open for all who wanted to live in harmony off the land. The Diggers combined spiritual, agricultural, and political concerns, at once celebrating individual salvation and social reform. Sound familiar?
In due form (it seems), those representing state and elite interests came down hard; beating the hell out of the Diggers all over England. Eventually, literal mounds of mud were patrolled by armed forces. The Wasteland was good if it was appropriated, bad as a place for cooperative sustenance.
The history of the Diggers offers a case wherein a Wasteland had been constructed, and been deemed in need of improvement, with very real political ramifications for those living in it. The case shows that the Wasteland is ripe with social, political, religious, and economic significance.
Wasteland and Improvement
An indispensable characteristic of any Wasteland is that it is constructed within the parameters of its potential for improvement.
For example, “barren” land may be “improved” by the planting of crops. Wastelands which are especially un-improvable (for the humans) are treated differently. Think about all the atomic bomb testing in the desert.
Whatever the conditions wasted-land; Wastelands are constructed under the idea that they could and should be made better. It may even be God’s duty.
Vittoria di Palma offers a great example of the ideals behind improvement by sketching an overview of the works of Francis Bacon, who inspired a lot of this whole thing. Bacon dreamed of an improved world in his unfinished utopian novel New Atlantis. Here, a utopian society exists on an island of bountiful fruits and peaceful Christians (scripture washed upon the shore).
Importantly, the island maintained a liberal arts and science institution, named “Salomon’s House.” The House served as an ideal of modern knowledge production, especially as guided by the movement toward a well rounded, and practical, set of activities related to education and scientific experimentation. The House was devoted to investigating the facets of nature to reproduce it, and thus to create a perfected world.
For Bacon, as reflected by those so lucky enough to land in Salomon’s House, the whole point to art and science was to understand, and imitate, nature. This was a practice which could improve places and things which were originally undesirable for humans. Once people could reproduce nature at will, they could control it. Nature on demand, as the saying goes.
Colonialism, and the Extent of the Wasteland
While I have looked toward Trump’s Wasteland in context of the Diggers and Bacon, it is a concept which gives purchase on all sorts of historical and contemporary struggles, especially ones involving imperialism. For instance, the notion of Wasteland was codified into the “Doctrine of Discovery,” used to legitimate efforts to decimate the indigenous peoples around the world.
Think of the struggle over the North Dakota “Access Pipeline” in the U.S., ongoing struggles over land and sovereignty in Palestine, and access to housing in city centers. The concept of Wasteland is central in each.
Indigenous North Americans claim access to sacred grounds in the effort to protect water and the environment. Yet, citing concerns over energy and security, developers seek to “improve” by constructing an oil pipeline. From a Wasteland perspective, the pipeline must be laid upon land transformed into waste. It need be wasted before it can be “improved.” In the case of ongoing struggles around land and survival in Palestine, Bedouin villages are displaced and destroyed to make way for military operations and settlements.[5] In this case, the Negev desert must be made into a Wasteland before development, or “improvement.” In the case of struggles over urban housing, developments in policy and infrastructure gutted cities before the onset of “urban renewal.” A Wasteland is created and “improved.”
This is all to say: The Trump Wasteland is nothing new. Wastelands are always present when there’s a war on. And there is a war on, here.
We Can Resist The Wasteland
It’s our job to keep living, and to live as big and as bold as we can. We’ve got to fill the wasteland with life, resist hate, and turn this muck into a teeming heap of sweaty people who do great vibrant things from their hearts.
Today as in any day, people will live their lives. People will continue to fall in love, they will scream with joy, they will have babies, make art, and make fun of each other. People will continue to dance, and stand around awkwardly while other people dance. People will continue to have deep concerns, engage in small talk, pillow talk, and drunk talk. They will always say hello to strangers, sometimes.
They will surely fill the Wasteland….and they will not be forgotten.
