I am continually interested in the theory behind the wording used in statements like this. Danger is always, always in the future: thankfully we are not living in an oligarchy now, but if we continue on this course.… I am confident the speakers have well-reasoned theory behind the refusal to describe current political relations in the US as intolerable, but what are listeners thinking? And why „drift“? Why the aversion to seeing current economic and political relations as the result of decades of very intentional effort?