A number of people have pointed this out in my timeline over the last months but I wanted to reiterate:

the defence - 'they were just a few bad apples', misses the actual point of the aphorism:

a few bad apples in a barrel, actually corrupts the entire barrel, unless removed (very)( quickly.

users of the phrase may defend that use by saying they acted quickly to avoid the corruption; but as they never really do, the original use - the corrupting effect *of* the bad apples, stands!

#politics