![A collage by Liat Elbling, from the series Men in Suits © The artist](https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CUT-19crop-900x0-c-default.jpg)
A collage by Liat Elbling, from the series Men in Suits © The artist
New Books
No one can torch the English language like a Beltway insider. A few years ago, phrases like “a feature, not a bug” and “saying the quiet part out loud” burned so fiercely through the Washington commentariat that they enjoyed hardly a moment between the flame of novelty and the ash of cliché. “Flood the zone”—used recently by the South Carolina congressman Jim Clyburn and the Clinton crony Philippe Reines, plus reporters at Politico, the Washington Post, and Axios—came into fashion in 2018, after Steve Bannon said, “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them…