stir up the animals

present singular third person stirs up the animals · participle present stirring up the animals · participle past stirred up the animals · past stirred up the animals

1. To cause public discontent or controversy.

   The Japanese were often skittish about elections: they wanted to control who they got as top administrators and feared elections might stir up the animals.

   2013, Rupert Wilkinson, Surviving a Japanese Internment Camp

   1 more example

   He styled himself both a Prohibition-flouting "Baltimoron" and "an incurable snob," the voice of "the intelligent minority" determined "to stir up the animals."

   2001, Richard P. Horwitz, The American Studies Anthology, page 50