Garlemald's situation. (Spoilers 6.55)

[Cleretic]

In summary, I argue that it is likely better to treat "Populares" and "Optimates" as merely labels, in the context of FFXIV, without going into the historical definitions of the terms. Replace them with "Politics A" and "Politics B", and it would be just as informative.

We also have something of a problem of limited perspectives. While we do know of the existence of the Populares and Optimates from multiple sources, our viewpoint of what the Populares want, think and believe is just Maxima. I hardly think Maxima is lying to us, but he only exists in very limited contexts, mostly relating to how the Garleans look at military and existential threats. And himself, is only one person who's unlikely to be completely, 100% reflective of the 'party line'. FFXIV has played with intra-party divides and their clashes with personal interests before with the Monetarists, so it's a fair assumption that the Populares were probably more complex than just talking to Maxima would have us believe.

Granted, a bunch of that doesn't matter, and probably reflect on things that we as players don't care about, like transport or healthcare. Maybe the Populares were actually way more conservative about, like, energy policy; we don't know, and probably never will, because it doesn't change one thing about the play experience.