Drain the swamp they said, it will be great they said

Step 1: Remove filters in Reflecting Pool because Obama put them in. Step 2: Give your criminal neighbor who runs "Greenwater Services" a $20 million no-bid contract to paint the pool. Step 3: Fill the pool with water from the Potomac River, the phosphates from which cause algae blooms. Step 4: Freshly sealed pool and extreme heat result in a super scum event. Step 5: Direct National Park Service to dump hydrogen peroxide into the pool which causes the paint to peel. Step 5: Deploy US National Guard to stop people from taking photos of the swamp as a perfect metaphor for the administration.

This meme satirizes the botched maintenance of the US National Mall Reflecting Pool, which became overgrown with bright green algae and resembled a swamp. It lists a sarcastic step-by-step sequence of poor administrative decisions that led to the state of the pool, ending with the deployment of the US National Guard to prevent people from photographing the failed pool, framed as a metaphor for the US administration's failure to deliver on the political promise to "drain the swamp" (eliminate government corruption and inefficiency). The bottom of the meme features a real photograph of a uniformed National Guard soldier standing on the edge of the visibly murky, green Reflecting Pool, with another guard visible in the background.

This meme originates from 9Gag, distributed via its RSS feed. It references the real 2024 public incident where the US Capitol Reflecting Pool experienced severe algae overgrowth after maintenance changes, paired with the widely known conservative political slogan "drain the swamp" to mock perceived government incompetence and cover-up attempts related to the botched pool maintenance.