… is from page 5 of Michael Strain’s excellent 2020 book, The American Dream Is Not Dead (But Populism Could Kill It):
[T]he [American] Dream is at immediate risk from populists on the left and the right – from their policies, from their narratives of victimhood and grievance, and from their assaults on the value of personal responsibility and the idea that people can better their outcomes.
DBx: Yes. Populism of any sort, and rooted in whatever soil and watered from whatever river or (as is typical) sewer, is a vile curse.