The Slatest

From the Rooftop Bar of the Politico Inauguration Hub, the Swamp Looks Here to Stay

A protester in downtown Washington wins the day.

Michelle Goldberg

The rooftop bar of the W hotel in Washington is probably taller than Harry Lime’s Viennese Ferris wheel, but the effect is just the same. Everyone below is just dots. Not that anyone at the Politico Inauguration Hub was looking.

Politico specializes in pairing midtier members of Congress relentless in pursuit of another Google Alert for their name with journalists’ need to satisfy their collegiate-level voracity for free food and their doomsday-prepper anxiety about finding a place where they can charge their phones. So the scene here at the hub—free drinks, catbird seats along the parade route, shelter from the drizzle—should have thrown off violent bursts of synergy like a networking version of the Oort Cloud. But the swells were all elsewhere, and even at this early hour the room already seemed enervated.

“The swamp is immutable,” said a young data analyst for Big Labor, nodding and familiarly half-smiling at the crowd, and, like everyone else, seeing the same party that will be held at least once a month for the next four years, just as it was for the past four. “You try to drain it, and you just move the water around.”

Either the fetid waters of D.C. were already receding, or the drylands were ablaze with an ethical, social, legal, and economic cataclysm, but nobody here was looking over the edge at the street below to determine which.

A few reporters who had arrived early posted up around available power outlets, while an older woman sitting alone in the middle of half a dozen unoccupied seats held her hands out at her sides as if to cast a warding spell on the booths.

“No, these seats are all reserved,” she told a reporter. “My son works at Politico, and this one is for him, and this one is for his wife, and the fourth seat is for my husband, and the other is for our friend.”

“Ma’am,” the reporter replied, pinching his nose, “I believe you.”

A brace of George Washington University grad students old enough to drink and young enough not to have done anything significantly evil yet poured through the doors and gathered ’round the bar, whispering to get the attention of the already Mimosa’d and verify whether the bar was complimentary. Their relief was palpable.

“We’re studying lobbying right now,” said an amiable young blond woman, before committing to a by-now clearly familiar exhortation to remember that lobbying is also done on behalf of environmental and social groups. “I think GW is co-sponsoring this,” she said, suddenly shifting into the tone of voice one expects to accompany the sentence, “My captors are treating me well.” She explained that she needed to move on, and sharing time ended.

Inside, the line for free food folded in on itself twice, hacks, families, and functionaries looking resentfully over their shoulders at the tables they’d have to double back for, furrowing brows and seeming to try to will the roast beef sandwiches to still be there by the time it was their turn.

Politico always does these,” the labor analyst went on, “but they’re not going to get the big names today. There are way bigger parties today, better invitations.”

There were—parties for states, industries, interests, subdivisions of all types for those swell enough to split hairs that finely. For blocks in each direction, every privilege and exclusivity had its own safe space.

The parade had not hove into view yet, and there was no reason to move to the ledge. Below, a few dots moved up and down a largely cordoned-off street, and if they made any noise, no one could tell.