Fill the Swamp?

David Graham: “As the 2016 presidential election drew to an end, Donald Trump began using a new slogan: ‘Drain the swamp.’ It was a neat encapsulation of his critique of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, and of the country’s governing establishment of both parties, which he painted as corrupt, cozy, and self-dealing.”

“These days, the catchphrase has begun to vanish from his repertoire. Last month, The Washington Post calculated that Trump had used it ‘just 59 times on Truth Social, his social media site, in the past two years—fewer times than he wrote about it on Twitter in October 2016 alone.’ The shift isn’t just semantic, either. Trump’s staffing decisions, his transition design, and his own behavior show that he is uninterested in even keeping up appearances this time. Trump himself will never say it, but the credo of his second term is coming into focus: Fill the swamp.”