Etymology The original term sprang from the belief that the swamp itself caused illnesses such as malaria and cholera, before the role of disease vectors was understood. The political use of the term is generally attributed to the neoconservative journalist Midge Decter, as a metaphor for right-wing political extremists as breeding ground for crazy ideas.
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An area of stagnant water and hot temperatures that acts as a breeding ground for disease vectors such as mosquitos.
Then Christmas Day dawned, and there was Vicksburg lifted two hundred feet above the fever swamps, her court-house shining in the morning sun.1901, Winston Churchill, The Crisis:
In the evenings he sat on deck with a lantern, and men and women gathered round to listen to him telling tales about fever swamps, elephant hunts and mountains infested with leopard.2012, Jennifer McVeigh, The Fever Tree, →ISBN:
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Explorers from Bruce to Speke, Thomson and Grant, nought to penetrate its secrets, but the malarial climate, the fever swamps and tangled forests, not to speak of wild beasts and savage men, barred the way.2013, W.A.L. Elmslie, Among the Wild Ngoni, →ISBN:
Into the fever swamps, they marched us . . . And they set us to work draining the swampland and toiling in the sun . . . . . . They set us to toiling . . . They took the white fleece of the cotton and the sweetness of the sugarcane and made them bitter and bloody with our toil . . .2016, Ralph Ellison, John Callahan, Juneteenth, →ISBN:
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Derogatory A group of political extremists or an area that is dominated by them.
Only a few years earlier, the neocons had been denouncing them as coming from "the fever swamps", in the words of Decter.2010, Nathan Abrams, Norman Podhoretz and Commentary Magazine, →ISBN:
Rafferty was a florid public speaker and aspiring demagogue who emerged from what even a conservative like William Rusher described as “the fever swamp of rightist kookery in southern California.2012, Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin, →ISBN:
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The neoconservatives, who only a few years before had been denouncing the far-right conservatism of "the fever swamps" (Midge Decter's term), had caught a bad case of far-right fever themselves.2013, Michael Lind, Up from Conservatism, →ISBN, page 98:
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Derogatory A set of extreme and crazy political positions.
The Right's ever-vigilant Slogan Division focus-grouped a winner on immigration: "No amnesty for lawbreakers." No "shamnesty." And that is where the Right made its stand, right in the middle of the Minutemen fever swamps.2008, Arianna Huffington, Right is Wrong, →ISBN, page 236:
It is worth it, before making a final comment on the grander points involved, to climb out of the polemical fever swamps and look with a little detachment on the purely economic question.2012, William F. Buckley, God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of 'Academic Freedom', →ISBN:
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But Obama's plunge into the fever swamp of birtherism was just the latest detour on what had already been a long, strange trip—with many miles still to go.2013, John Heilemann, Mark Halperin, Double Down, →ISBN, page 12:
fever-swamp
noun
› Alternative form of fever swamp.
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Disease-ridden swamp.
Think of it as the Martian equivalent of the Fountain of Youth, which that grizzled and gullible old soldier-of-fortune, Ponce de Leon, once searched for in the fever-swamps of Florida, and you will not be far off the mark.1974, Lin Carter, The valley where time stood still, page 31:
It was so hot in this fever-swamp that his water requirements would be prodigious.2006, Hugh Cook, The Worshippers and the Way, →ISBN, page 260:
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And now we were fairly on the bosom of the 'mighty' Mississippi, that largest, and ugliest, and most tremendous of rivers ; tremendous through the force of its resistless currents, and the fever-swamps that spread their noxious vapours over its surface.2007, Matilda Houstoun, Hesperos - Volume 2, →ISBN, page 42:
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Group of political extremists.
The community has been the focus of the fever-swamp for years, with pundits insisting it's a terrorist training camp.2017 February 21, Heather Yakin, “Our Muslim neighbors are being targeted with violent threats”, in Times Herald-Record:
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Extreme political positions.
Among those caught up in the fever-swamp was Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush's two White House wins.2014, John Avlon, Wingnuts: Extremism in the Age of Obama, →ISBN, page 252: