The Rise of Anti-Politics
Americans like to dance around their problems rather than confronting them head on. One such unaddressed issue is politics itself. People hate politics. They don’t like the government, elected officials, the media, and many of the policy outcomes produced by the legislative and executive branches. In 2023, a meager four percent of U.S. adults told Pew that they think the political system is working either extremely well or very well.
Partisans really hate politics—when their opponents are in charge. Trump people hated Obama and Clinton people. The Resistance hated Trump. MAGA hated Biden. The Resistance hates MAGA again. The cycle of partisan animosity spins round and round. Everyone else who is not a regimented partisan wisely checks out to focus on other things.
Rather than constituting normal democratic processes and public deliberation on important national matters and reforms, all of this elevated public distrust and anger at institutions, along with mutual loathing between partisans, constitutes a distinctly American form of anti-politics. Anti-politics is a concept that describes public opposition to traditional democratic norms and procedures ranging from radicalism and conspiracy theories to elite technocracy and one-man authoritarian rule. Anti-politics can be left-wing or right-wing, or come from no wing at all. It can involve radical assaults on the political system itself or active disengagement from democratic participation of any kind.
In Western democracies, anti-politics mainly takes the form of either populism or fragmentation and apathy. Both versions start from the premise that traditional representative democracy—elections, legislative debate, policy making, executive decisions, judicial review, citizen participation—is a deeply flawed system of governance that is unresponsive to citizens’ desires and therefore requires radical disruption or rejection and withdrawal from politics to focus on personal aspects of life.
Anti-politics in America is exemplified by two populist leaders from the right and left: Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Trump is America’s leading master of a certain kind of anti-politics emanating from the nationalist right: against all established institutions they don’t control, dismissive of “elites” and “experts,” distrustful of elections and political processes that don’t advance their positions, disdainful of outsiders, and dedicated to the belief that only their leadership can break through governmental corruption to restore the country. Trump tries to achieve some ideological coherency in his approach, but his form of anti-politics ultimately boils down to an agenda based on his own whims, lifelong obsessions, demands for fealty, and attacks on anyone or anything that gets in his way.
Because of America’s two-party system, Trump has emerged as the world’s most successful practitioner of anti-politics, both in terms of taking over his entire party apparatus and in achieving notable election and governing successes. As seen in 2016 and 2024, there’s a relatively large constituency in the U.S. for his brand of anti-politics. Some right-wing populist and nationalist parties around the world have found governing success, such as Giorgia Meloni in Italy and Viktor Orban in Hungary. But other populist leaders and parties tend to operate mainly as opposition forces rather than governing entities and end up toiling away with relatively small voter support and multiparty systems that block their influence.
No current right-wing populist leader in the democratic world truly matches the scale and success of Trump’s efforts to turn anti-politics into real governing power.
In contrast, Bernie Sanders represents a more ideological form of leftist anti-politics based on the primary belief that everything in American life is a rigged game that favors the wealthy. Although Sanders competes for influence within the Democratic Party, he remains an independent. His supporters despise establishment politics. His solution for nearly every problem is always to attack the “oligarchs” and “billionaires” and to replace plutocratic government with some nascent form of democratic socialism built on high taxation, nationalized health care, a smaller military, green energy policies, and universal social spending.
Leftist anti-politics generally performs better in continental Europe than in America given historical left-wing activism in countries like France, Greece, Portugal, and Spain. Unlike Trump, however, Bernie Sanders has been less successful in capitalizing on leftist anti-politics within America’s two-party system. Sanders and his progressive followers clearly have amassed influence but have never taken over or transformed the Democratic Party the way Trump did on the Republican side. Although Sanders has built a fiercely loyal constituency, and enjoys decent personal popularity and support for his attacks on the rich, he faces a strong counterbalance from moderate Democrats while his national support is capped by Americans’ general resistance to higher taxes, more governmental regulation of the economy, and higher social spending.
Why are both Trump and Sanders considered exemplars of anti-politics rather than politics? It’s not just semantics. Both men and their movements are engaged in political activity, but it is a distinctly disruptive form of political action rather than a steady, incremental approach designed to achieve policy goals through majoritarian legislation or other bipartisan measures.
Anti-politics generally works much better as an election framework than as a blueprint for governing. Populist anti-politics is thus best viewed as a shock to the system, not a well administered and widely supported course of treatment. The strengths and weaknesses of this model are best seen in the heavy dose of executive actions early in Trump’s second term coupled with his rapidly declining job approval ratings.
The fragmentation-apathy side of anti-politics is most apparent in the backlash to mainstream media and other expert bodies along with the proliferation of new social media influencers, podcasters, bloggers, activists, tech evangelists, and regular people “doing their own research” to get around the partisan gatekeepers they feel routinely mislead or lie to the public. Similarly, for those not drawn to these fragmented anti-elite media voices, the most common form of anti-politics is paying little to no attention to traditional politics, public debates, or decisions by government.
“I hate politics and won’t participate” is a rapidly growing if disorganized movement among independent and non-affiliated Americans who are fed up with partisan rhetoric and policy failures.
What is the future of anti-politics in America?
One possible end game is that Trumpian anti-politics from the right cements its power in government and maintains electoral advantages for the next few presidential cycles as a cohesive plurality movement with the ability to reach majority status by bringing in other disgruntled Americans who like their disruption and change. Given the president’s political skills, the dynamics of the Republican Party, and the reality of the Electoral College, this is a plausible if difficult scenario for Trump’s successor to pull off. Anti-politics worked well for Trump in 2024 but the viability of this approach four years from now is uncertain.
Another possible outcome is that Trump’s second term ends up in a ditch, probably due to economic mismanagement and right-wing culture wars. This could allow leftist anti-politics to finally take over the Democrats and convince enough disappointed Americans among the larger electorate to give the opposite end of the ideological spectrum a chance to prove their worth. This scenario is plausible but not probable. It would first require centrist and moderate Democrats to give up their internal fight for control of the party and then would require mainstream Americans to take on notably more progressive economic and cultural views than they currently hold.
A third scenario is that anti-politics on the right and left fails in the eyes of many Americans who instead band together to back a “return to normalcy” as represented by something other than the Trump or Sanders wings of their respective two parties. Since Trump is in power and completely dominates his party, this would most likely have to come from a moderate or reform-minded presidential nominee giving voice to this sentiment from the Democratic side. Joe Biden was elected in 2020 based on this approach but he did not deliver the goods in the eyes of most Americans thus fueling another round of anti-politics from Trump.
Given the dynamics that have emerged in the U.S. since 2000, a return to normalcy would likely represent a temporary solution at best rather than a long-term turnaround for traditional politics and governing. The stark reality is that anti-politics isn’t going away anytime soon. The days of civic-minded officials working cooperatively within and across party lines to advance national economic, social, and security goals with public backing are either long gone or a romantic delusion.
Once public trust and confidence in government and politics is lost, it’s difficult for any party to rebuild it with sustained majority support.
Unfortunately, this means America may be in for a rough period of governance since anti-politics engages the most angry and radical segments of society and rarely pleases anyone else. Perhaps various right-wing and left-wing populist outbursts will lead to reforms that most Americans like. More likely than not, however, anti-politics will continue to swamp rational efforts at consensus building and pragmatic policy making in defense of America’s interests and all its people.
I suspect that this anti- politics is a direct result of people feeling betrayed by their political leaders. It would have been interesting if a “betrayal “ question or two were being asked over the last few decades. Betrayal generates a lot more negative emotion than many other things. How the financial crisis was handled in 2008 is a good example but there are many other incidents on both sides. I also suspect that the rise of the internet intensified this feeling of betrayal by letting like minded people understand they were not alone.
The two biggest impediments to dealing with our problems:
(1) A large majority of voters doesn't want to pay for the public services and benefits they receive. They favor cuts to other people's pet programs, but not their own. They don't want overall spending reductions if their personal benefits are affected at all. They also favor tax cuts for themselves and tax increases for others. Exceptions of course, but this is the rule.
(2) The American structure of divided government (including the Senate filibuster) makes it hard to accomplish anything and it greatly reduces accountability. When Congress and the President are from different parties or neither party has 60 Senators, they spend most of their time pointing fingers at each other, and voters don't know whom to blame for what. Politicians everywhere serve their personal interests first, which means they will do almost anything to get elected and then to stay in office or move to higher office. They will always want the other party to fail because failure increases the odds of their party coming to power at the next election. A two party parliamentary system would not bring perfect results - no system would - but at least everyone would know which party had the power and could be held accountable.
We're doomed to suffer a fiscal crisis sometime because few politicians will even hint at realistic solutions - the public wants free stuff, all gain and no pain in the form of higher taxes or meaningful spending reductions.