The Status Quo and Switch Political Trope
First I’d really appreciate it if you would watch this video on the status quo and switch trope in anime and superhero genres (watching insures the author of this trope gets paid). If you want watch it double speed and just slow down for the status quo and switch definition.
For those of you that didn’t watch status quo and switch in the superhero genre is Thanos. He’s trying to solve a real problem, overpopulation, but all moral ambiguity is removed by his using the most idiotic and violent means, eliminate half the sentient creatures in the universe.
Typically the status quo and switch bad guy or political bad guy solution only very temporarily solves anything — for instance even if you kill half the sentient universe the other half will quickly overpopulate again. The solution leaves the status quo in place, because the political elites or the writers need the status quo to continue to be in power or writing.
We see status quo and switch with George W. Bush and Donald Trump very consistently.
Terrorism? No problem we’ll shock and awe a country unrelated to the terrorists into the ground for weapons of mass destruction they don’t have.
Lost manufacturing? No problem we’ll tariff shock and awe the global economy into dust.
Illegal immigration? No problem we’ll deport shock and awe until even people born here are removed or lose all their rights as citizens.
And of course many status quo and switch political bad guys go full Thanos like Netanyahu, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, …
However status quo and switch is not limited to antagonists. Let’s call the bad guy version as antagonism status quo and switch, ASQS. There is also a protagonist status quo and switch, PSQS, explained in this video.
Again for those that didn’t watch Naruto is a shinobi who hates forcing children to become soldiers and soldiering for hire in general. He saves the world by stopping the evilest of the enemy soldiers and becomes, basically president, of his clan. However even after becoming president the clan continues to use soldiers for hire as their main sustenance.
PSQS leaders might soften the issue they intended to solve, but like Naruto they find that changing their nation’s entire economic system is difficult or just lose interest once they gain power.
Note that if Naruto had made a serious attempt at closing child military schools and failed that would be one thing. But no serious attempt is made.
Here think Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, or any of their neoliberal followers. The switch part of the status quo and switch is made obvious by preemptive concessions.
Health care too expensive? The Republicans will never let us pass a socialist plan like all the other rich countries so we will spend our political capital on a plan originally proposed by a Republican.
Economic problems? Undoing tax cuts for the rich is too hard so we will pass big business friendly “growth” policies.
Now you might say well it’s not really PSQS because people thought these plans would work. Not really.
Rep. John Dingell (Democrat of Michigan) argued that the bill would result in banks becoming “too big to fail.” Dingell further argued that this would necessarily result in a bailout by the Federal Government.
Unlike ASQS, there is nothing terrible about PSQS by itself. It’s really the combination of PSQS and ASQS that is extremely bad — let’s call it PAPASQS. In this sequence status quo survives but only in it’s scariest form.
Let’s look at PAPASQS in the superhero genre. So the infinity stones are created and then hidden — PSQS. Then Thanos collects them all and kills half the universe — ASQS. Then the good guys get the infinity stones for themselves and use them to just restore the people who were killed and no better — PSQS. Which, since nothing has really been resolved, of course sets up the cinematic universe for some even worse ASQS in the future.
Note that the infinity stones are in the good guys possession twice and both times they just take steps to make sure they are not used or undo their most recent usage. At no point do the good guys consider using the infinity stones for good.
It’s preemptive concession — since there are bad guys out there and we can’t even fully trust ourselves it’s best that power not be used for good. Sounds pragmatic but it just guarantees horrible things continually happen.
If the good guys only fight for status quo and sometimes fall short of that, it’s only a matter of time before someone concludes they are not good guys. That’s explicitly stated by the Doctor Strange character Karl Mordo as “Too many sorcerers”, the Sokovia Accords to restrain super heroes, spiderman and Dr. Strange almost destroying the world, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse having a beautiful interplay between PSQS grimly trying to retain a deeply flawed status quo while ASQS attempts to destroy all worlds.
In the real world PAPASQS plays out as Clinton — Bush — Obama — Trump — Biden — Trump. The American status quo has so far survived but horrible things continually happen.
If another Clinton / Obama / Biden PSQS leader is elected then we’ve no reason to expect to avoid collapse, assuming we make it even that far.