[DiogenesLamp]

There are trillions at stake; it is all about the economics; all else is chaff and countermeasures.

That's what a lot of people don't grasp. Washington DC works according to a lot of rules other than what people think. At the bottom of it all is money.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "That's what a lot of people don't grasp.
Washington DC works according to a lot of rules other than what people think.
At the bottom of it all is money."

The 1860 Republican Party platform included 14 "planks" covering matters from slavery & secession to the transcontinental railroad.
Plank #6:

"6. That the people justly view with alarm the reckless extravagance which pervades every department of the Federal Government; that a return to rigid economy and accountability is indispensable to arrest the systematic plunder of the public treasury by favored partisans; while the recent startling developments of frauds and corruptions at the Federal metropolis, show that an entire change of administration is imperatively demanded."

Republicans were elected in 1860, just as in 2016, to "drain the swamp" in Washington, DC.
Democrats, then as now, went berserk realizing their loss of political power.