Jeanne, “Drain the swamp” was Mussolini’s campaign slogan.
Really?
SDJ, only half true as per this Politifact article: https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/may/09/madeleine-albright/madeleine-albright-right-about-mussolini-and-drain/
Evidently he literally drained swamps around Rome as public works projects, but he never had any political slogans saying "Drain the Swamps."
Marley thanks. Great article. SDJ, thanks for prompting us to check it out. So it’s half true— Mussolini ran on a campaign, in part, to cleanse or purge the bureaucracy —as did Trump (and also Reagan by the way. Republicans love to go after the bureaucracy but then they end out creating a worse and more expensive scenario). And Mussolini also said he would literally drain the swamps surrounding Rome.
I got my information from Madeleine Albright's book. She lists several more parallels to previous fascists, but primarily to Mussolini. The main difference between the two men being that Mussolini was disciplined and willing to do the work.
I believe the Russian motivation is to cause chaos. This is why they support extremists on both sides of a democratic divide. They don’t support anyone in the centre! When I was a child I used to watch old re-runs of the show “Get Smart”. The opposing force, modeled on the USSR, was called “Chaos”. I think this motivation has been around for a while.