re: #43 Dangerman

Annoyingly, there has always been a virulent strain of populism in the US. It takes many forms, and is not the sole domain of the left or right. From Jefferson’s “yeomen farmers” to Jacksonian Democracy to Huey Long and George Wallace to Ross Perot, Sarah Palin, Trump and Sanders.

Anti-elite/anti-expert, trust the people, every man a king, etc etc etc

It’s bred deep in the DNA of the country, part of the nation’s creation myths, really. Usually it can be tempered, but occasionally it becomes dominate and we end up fucking ourselves for a decade or two.