national idea changes randomly

[Trin Tragula]

Agreed. I would prefer having the populists change laws instead of NIs, it sounds more historical to me.

I suppose you could argue that they are riding on the wave of popular demand for a certain thing or another, thereby lifting this thing from a temporary trend to something that will take a more permanent place in the hearts of the citizens through their campaign. A populist is likely to be campaigning for change after all. Revoking what was gained by popular support shouldn't be entirely unproblematic in a republic such as Rome. The people would have a notion that they where the ones to have the state honour the kind of virtues they prefered.
Atleast this is how I explain it to myself I do wish that you'd get some sort of notion of what idea the current electable populist wants to change and to what though...

 

[Trin Tragula]

True but a law or something else would be more logical.

Well supposedly the choosing of ideas in practice does mean changing a lot of laws as well as promoting certain ideals. I don't find the fact that the populist consul does so easily so bad considering that all the other consuls gets to do so as well (as long as it fits their particular ideology). The populist doesn't have an ideology of his own and so is allowed to change whatever idea he was elected to change (much the same as the other consuls really when you think about it, with the difference that the others lets you pick which one in their respective area).