Donald Trump told America he wanted to “drain the swamp.”

With many, particularly in rural America, the phrase stuck — popular with those tired of Washington’s ways. The swamp Trump referred to is Washington’s political pond of people like Bill and Hillary Clinton, who have been in politics for decades.

What does drain the swamp mean? It means originally “to get rid of the malaria-carrying mosquitoes by draining the swamp. Figuratively, ‘drain the swamp’ means ‘to exterminate something that is harmful; or anything that most of the people hate such as corruption or government waste. This term is especially attractive for politicians during campaign,” according to stackexchange.com.

Tonight, for instance, the screens in the ballroom are turned to Fox News. When the station shows images of Clinton’s election headquarters, the room breaks into boos and chants of one of Trump’s slogans: “Drain the swamp!”

In other words, it means to get rid of figurative things like alligators that have an age-old premise to get new life in the land. It is simply a means of saying let’s get rid of all the old that’s no good to us.

From Slate: “In a press release from Oct. 17, Trump pledged to “drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.” He then tweeted: “I will Make Our Government Honest Again — believe me. But first, I’m going to have to #DrainTheSwamp.” Since then, Trump and his supporters have punctuated tweet after tweet with the hashtag.”