In light of recent events, I have decided to choose a candidate.

[Hortensis]

62. :) Love your name, Tirebiter. Also SO sick of hearing "status quo."

It's a populist dog whistle that means everything and anything "establishment" that those in the grip of mindlessly antagonistic populist fervor are told to despise at the moment. And there goes my string again! Trump, yes? ACA, oh yes! Evil Democratic Party, hell yes!

Subversive agitprop is turning anxious people into rabble ready to be lead to indiscriminate destruction of the government they grew up with and that most of the planet envies them.

Current status quo, as said, is Republican control and trumpism, but when we look at what populists on both sides are being turned against, it turns out to be virtually entirely the Democratic "status quo," the freedoms of liberal democracy we've always had.

Depowering or destroying the Democratic Party would destroy progressivism in government, but they're not told that. They're told Democrats are its enemies, not its creators and protectors.

Eras of populist uprising are dangerous-scary, so it's pretty frivolous that what really boils my butt and jerks my string is the imagined virtue underlying this mindlessly hostile phrase. Populists may want to be, but populist movements are anything but virtuous. They have no idea what the new status quo would be after destroying the old one because they take that on faith.

Just look at Trump and Sanders. The right's still waiting for their much better and cheaper healthcare as Trump works to destroy all chances of it ever, but they're in for Trump anyway. Those on the left have no idea what socialism is, but if their leader's socialist they're in for that also. Disposable banners, or sharpie-alterable ones, to march under, provided by leaders who know they can continue to lead these followers almost anywhere once in power.

Good grief.