It wasn’t quite “build the wall” or “lock her up,” but “drain the swamp” was a signature Donald Trump slogan.

It evoked visions of pinstripe suit-wearing influence-peddlers getting pulled from their Georgetown cocktail parties en masse and tossed into the Potomac River, as Washingon returned to the once-sleepy burg it was 100 years ago, a humbled and more righteous town.

This was always a fantasy. The oldest story in Washington is a new president elected on a pledge to clean up Washington, who then turns to old Washington hands and well-connected financiers to help shepherd his administration. It was true of George W. Bush and Barack Obama and now will be true of the even more populist and anti-Washington Donald Trump.

The swamp will endure; it always does. This doesn’t mean that a Trump administration can’t make the swamp less important.