Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:43 pm
Trump adviser Newt Gingrich told NPR’s Morning Edition today that Trump isn’t using “drain the swamp” anymore. “I’m told he now just disclaims that. He now says it was cute, but he doesn’t want to use it anymore.”
That might be because he has no intention of draining the swamp. Not that he did before, but it’s just a bit more obvious, as CNN’s David Wright puts it, “now that he’s knee-deep in alligators.”
Listen to the interview below:
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Gingrich, like all Trump supporters trying to justify the volume of nonsense coming out of their hero’s mouth, tried to rationalize the decision, claiming “he’s in a different role now, and maybe he feels that as president, as the next president of the United States, that he should be marginally more dignified than talking about alligators in swamps.
As if dignity enters into the growing collection of Trump utterances via Twitter. Dignity of the office is the last thing on Trump’s mind.
Of course, in October Trump explained his real reasons for using the phrase: people liked it. No actual truth content, but votes, because that’s how fascism works: catchy, empty slogans that promise much and deliver nothing:
“We are going to drain the swamp. You know, that phrase started about a week ago, and I thought it was terrible. I didn’t like it at all. I said I don’t know; I just don’t like it. And now it’s become one of the hottest phrases anywhere in the world and I’m saying I like it.
“That’s like — did you ever see the great singers, Frank Sinatra, some of his greatest hits he didn’t like them. But at the end he liked them very much. Right? It’s what happened with drain the swamp. It’s a great phrase. But it’s true. The people like it. That’s much more important.”
Now that the election is over he’s tired of what he thought was a big hit and he’s busily filling his administration with insiders and lobbyists – the very people he said he was going to kick out of Washington.
For example,
Drain the swamp? Lewandowski cashing in, setting up firm down the street from the White House. https://t.co/totBk0z5o3 pic.twitter.com/xFGHjjnHgf
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) December 21, 2016
Maybe even record-setting liar Donald Trump, this “buffoon with funny hair” as a former Apprentice producer calls him, sees that “drain the swamp” is just a lie too far.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
