{"id":86644,"date":"2026-01-08T15:02:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T15:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.noemamag.com"},"modified":"2026-01-08T18:34:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T18:34:40","slug":"a-new-anti-political-fervor","status":"publish","type":"wpm-article","link":"https:\/\/www.noemamag.com\/a-new-anti-political-fervor","title":{"rendered":"A New Anti-Political Fervor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s said that we live in a crisis of democracy, but it would be better stated that we live in a crisis of politics. Throughout the world, and especially in the West, an anti-political mood has taken hold.&nbsp;<\/p><div>\n    <iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"noa-web-audio-player\"\n            style=\"border: none\"\n            src=\"https:\/\/embed-player.newsoveraudio.com\/v4?key=n0e13g&#038;id=https:\/\/www.noemamag.com\/a-new-anti-political-fervor\/&#038;bgColor=F3F3F3&#038;color=6D6D6D&#038;progressBgColor=F7F7F7&#038;progressBorderColor=6D6D6D&#038;playColor=F3F3F3&#038;titleColor=383D3D&#038;timeColor=6D6D6D&#038;speedColor=6D6D6D&#038;noaLinkColor=6D6D6D&#038;noaLinkHighlightColor=039BE5\"\n            width=\"100%\" height=\"110px\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><p>Faith in several key national institutions is at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pew.org\/en\/trend\/archive\/fall-2024\/americans-deepening-mistrust-of-institutions\">an all-time low<\/a> in the U.S. To many voters, political outsiders are <a href=\"https:\/\/news.uchicago.edu\/story\/study-outsider-candidates-perform-better-polarized-political-environments\">more compelling<\/a> than experienced politicians. Anger toward elites is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2025\/06\/30\/dissatisfaction-with-democracy-remains-widespread-in-many-nations\/\">commonplace<\/a> as income inequality rises. The social climate is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.noemamag.com\/author\/lisa-bubert\/\">growing<\/a> lonelier and more frayed. Community life <a href=\"https:\/\/novum.substack.com\/p\/social-recession-by-the-numbers\">has suffered<\/a>, worsened by internet use. We trust each other <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/2025\/05\/08\/americans-trust-in-one-another\/\">less<\/a>, and we are more anxious and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/12\/26\/americans-direction-country-poll-trump\">pessimistic<\/a> about the future.\u00a0<\/p><p>For most of the 20th century, politics and even political parties were viewed as a home outside of home by many, fortified by strong social bases of support. Unions, churches, civic organizations and local community life made up the foundation. This rootedness created both manageable stability for the state and meaning for people.<\/p><p>These places of belonging have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.labyrinthbooks.com\/bowling-alone-revised-and-updated\/\">since declined<\/a>, and so too has politics declined as a home. What has emerged in response is an untethered and distrusting public. Historically, transitional periods of great economic and social dislocation like ours are also times of heightened anti-political sentiments. Everyday people become detached from and even suspicious of their public representatives.&nbsp;<\/p><p>What makes today\u2019s situation remarkable is how forcefully anti-political feelings have risen across many different countries, all at the same time. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2025\/06\/30\/dissatisfaction-with-democracy-remains-widespread-in-many-nations\/\">Recent polling<\/a> shows dissatisfaction with democracy across 12 leading high-income nations at a median of 64% \u2014 a record high. These trends extend far beyond the Western world. 2025 has seen unprecedented revolts <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/09\/19\/opinion\/asia-protest-youth-nepal-bangladesh.html\">in Asia<\/a> motivated by a strong sense of disgust toward politicians and nepotism. Similar anger has fueled protests in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/kenya-tensions-after-more-deadly-protests\/a-73198880\">Kenya<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/oct\/01\/violence-morocco-anti-government-protests-gen-z\">Morocco<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cgkzm7prngzo\">Madagascar<\/a> and elsewhere across Africa.&nbsp;<\/p><p>Politicians and elites now find themselves \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.versobooks.com\/products\/2324-ruling-the-void?srsltid=AfmBOor0MjxN7eypfBVN6lnw5r4lLLG_yq0rdYEcQ7rhHgy2F66v_xRm\">ruling the void<\/a>,\u201d in the words of political theorist Peter Mair.<\/p><p>In this day and age, anti-political feelings tend to manifest as a swarm. Usually online, movements rapidly take shape, organize themselves and then often dissipate as quickly as they appear. United by shared distrust of the political class, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu\/beyond-the-square-the-legacy-of-the-15m-movement\/\">15-M protests<\/a> in Spain, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/nyc-history\/tours\/occupy-wall-street\/\">Occupy Wall Street<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2020\/12\/17\/what-is-the-arab-spring-and-how-did-it-start\">Arab Spring<\/a> were some of the first primarily internet-based, swarm-like movements in the 2010s. \u201cNeither-nor\u201d and \u201cDown with the partycratic dictatorship\u201d were <a href=\"https:\/\/press.stripe.com\/the-revolt-of-the-public\">common slogans<\/a> of the <em>indignados <\/em>in Spain in 2011.&nbsp;<\/p><p>More recently, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2018\/12\/03\/672862353\/who-are-frances-yellow-vest-protesters-and-what-do-they-want\">Yellow Vests<\/a> formed in France in 2018 as a decentralized swarm against the state. Swarms have even toppled governments \u2014 as in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-europe-43948181\">Armenia<\/a> in 2018, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.american.edu\/sis\/news\/20240806-bangladesh-protests-explained.cfm\">Bangladesh<\/a> in 2024 and <a href=\"https:\/\/hsph.harvard.edu\/atrocity-prevention-lab\/news\/the-2025-gen-z-uprising-in-nepal-a-three-part-analysis\/\">Nepal<\/a> in 2025. Outsider candidates have also embraced the anti-political climate to enter power themselves, with mixed results.<\/p><p>In the past decade, the populist right has had more success capitalizing on the anti-political mood. But anti-politics is a raw public energy, not bound by any political ideology. It is redefining the entire political terrain. Is anti-politics, as The New York Times columnist David Brooks <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/02\/26\/opinion\/the-governing-cancer-of-our-time.html\">wrote<\/a> in 2016, truly the \u201cgoverning cancer of our time\u201d? Or is it instead society\u2019s antibody response against the state\u2019s failures, a symptom of a deeper transformation?<\/p><p>While periods of anti-political fervor have taken hold just as strongly in the past, our situation today is unique. There are two historical moments that can help us understand what motivates the current frustration and sets it apart. Through this frame, we can better contextualize the U.S. case and also discern what future might come of it.<\/p><p>Anti-politics is a vehicle of discontentment, a real but disorganized spirit of our time, and its destination is an open question.<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-after-world-war-i\"><strong>After World War I<\/strong><\/h2><p>While being held in an Italian prison by fascists in the 1930s, philosopher and politician Antonio Gramsci <a href=\"https:\/\/ia600506.us.archive.org\/19\/items\/AntonioGramsciSelectionsFromThePrisonNotebooks\/Antonio-Gramsci-Selections-from-the-Prison-Notebooks.pdf\">wrote<\/a> that \u201cat a certain point in their historical lives, social classes become detached from their traditional parties.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p><p>When ruling elites lose their consensus, he continued, they are \u201cno longer \u2018leading\u2019 but only \u2018dominant\u2019 \u2026 this means precisely that the great masses have become detached from their traditional ideologies and no longer believe what they used to believe previously.\u201d<\/p><p>This insight was the preface to an often-quoted adaptation of his words: Such times are when the \u201cold is dying, and the new is struggling to be born.\u201d This is also when a \u201cgreat variety of morbid symptoms appear.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p><p>Gramsci was diagnosing a social climate that had emerged from World War I. The Great War produced homelessness and personal loss on an unprecedented scale. Centuries-old empires like those of the Habsburg Dynasty of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire collapsed. New states emerged from the rubble, and lives in the ones that survived were permanently altered.&nbsp;<\/p><!-- Quote Block Template -->\n\n<figure class=\"quote\">\n\n  <blockquote class=\"quote__container\">\n\n    <div class=\"quote__text\">\n      &#8220;Anti-politics is a raw public energy, not bound by any political ideology. It is redefining the entire political terrain.&#8221;    <\/div>\n\n    \n    <div class=\"quote__social-media\">\n      <div\n        class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_35 a2a_default_style\"\n        data-a2a-url=\"https:\/\/www.noemamag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wpm-article\/86644\"\n        data-a2a-title='\"Anti-politics is a raw public energy, not bound by any political ideology. It is redefining the entire political terrain.\"'\n      >\n        <a class=\"a2a_button_facebook\"><\/a>\n        <a class=\"a2a_button_twitter\"><\/a>\n        <a class=\"a2a_button_email\"><\/a>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n  <\/blockquote>\n<\/figure><p>Because everything was so battered, the years between the two world wars were a time of intensely contested mass politics in Europe. People were searching for an identity and desperately sought answers on how to start anew.&nbsp;<\/p><p>Many spoke openly against parliamentary democracy at the time. The democracies after World War I were hastily constructed and were unable to cope with the tide of popular demands. Rife with factionalism and historical grievances, they were inherently unstable.<\/p><p>Parliamentary democracy, therefore, became an easy whipping post of frustration. In \u201cThe Revolt of the Masses,\u201d Spanish philosopher Jos\u00e9 Ortega y Gasset in 1929 likened the anti-political mood of the masses to \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/dli.ministry.22030\/page\/203\/mode\/2up?q=negation\">mere negation<\/a>.\u201d The crisis of politics then was mainly channeled by two mass movements: communists and fascists.&nbsp;<\/p><p>The fascists would ultimately be most successful in converting this anti-political mood into power. By the end of the 1930s, the crisis of politics had transformed the European continent. In 1938, only 13 European states were parliamentary democracies, down from 26 in 1920.&nbsp;<\/p><p>The damage caused by radical mass parties provoked philosopher Simone Weil to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/237807\/on-the-abolition-of-all-political-parties-by-simone-weil-translated-from-the-french-and-introduced-by-simon-leys-with-a-contribution-by-czeslaw-milosz\/\">write<\/a> \u201cOn the Abolition of All Political Parties\u201d<em> <\/em>in 1943. She concluded that the logical endpoint of every party is a monopoly on power at the expense of society. The ultimate goal of a party, she wrote, \u201cis its own growth, without limit.\u201d<\/p><p>The social climate remained distrustful and cynical well into World War II. In \u201cWorld of Yesterday,\u201d<em> <\/em>published in 1941, Austrian writer Stefan Zweig looked across Europe and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nebraskapress.unl.edu\/nebraska-paperback\/9780803226616\/the-world-of-yesterday\/\">found<\/a> pessimism everywhere:<\/p><div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><p>In 1939&#8230; this almost religious faith in honesty or at least the ability of your own government had disappeared throughout the whole of Europe. Nothing but contempt was felt for diplomacy after the public had watched, bitterly, as it wrecked any chance of a lasting peace at Versailles.<\/p>\n\n<p>At heart, no one respected any of the statesmen in 1939, and no one entrusted his fate to them with an easy mind. The nations remembered clearly how shamelessly they had been betrayed with promises of disarmament and the abolition of secret diplomatic deals\u2026 Where, they asked themselves, will they drive us now?<\/p><\/div><\/div><p>The sad irony of the period is that the public, who had grown so cynical of parliamentary politics, now found their frustrations once again exploited and their destiny decided for them, just like in 1914. They had no choice but to fall in line.<\/p><p>\u201cMen went to the front, but not dreaming of becoming heroes,\u201d Zweig wrote. \u201cNations and individuals felt they were the victims of either ordinary political folly or the power of an incomprehensible and malicious fate.\u201d<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-under-the-iron-curtain\"><strong>Under The Iron Curtain<\/strong><\/h2><p>Unlike during the volatile interwar years, anti-political feelings were forced underground in Eastern Europe after World War II. The public was suppressed under a cult of power ruling like an impenetrable leviathan. In 1956, the Soviet state violently crushed the people\u2019s uprising in Hungary. In 1968, it did the same in Czechoslovakia.<\/p><p>After that tragedy, it became clear to many that politics was a dead end. According to Czech dissident V\u00e1clav Havel, even though no one believed in the state, <a href=\"https:\/\/history.hanover.edu\/courses\/excerpts\/165havel.html\">one had to<\/a> \u201cbehave as though they did or tolerate them in silence.\u201d The mood was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.internationalschoolhistory.net\/central_eastern_europe\/solidarity.htm\">best captured<\/a> by Polish dissident Jacek Kuro\u0144: \u201cWhat is to be done when nothing can be done?\u201d<\/p><p>With all political possibilities for change seemingly closed, dissidents instead asked how life should be lived and shared with others. They turned their focus toward civil society, forming a counter-movement that Hungarian writer Gy\u00f6rgy Konr\u00e1d called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/1053072\">anti-politics<\/a>.\u201d<\/p><p>Anti-politics was a social movement that sought to create a public space separate from the state. It went by many names: \u201csecond culture,\u201d \u201cparallel polis,\u201d \u201cpolitics from below.\u201d As Havel put it, the dissident \u201chas no desire for office and does not gather votes. He offers nothing and promises nothing.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p><p>Eastern European anti-politics was instead a social project: a moral critique of power rooted in everyday life. Havel famously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nonviolent-conflict.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/1979\/01\/the-power-of-the-powerless.pdf\">coined<\/a> its credo as \u201cliving within the truth.\u201d Polish journalist Konstanty Gebert <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=aDVFqf0uxt0C&amp;pg=PT46&amp;lpg=PT46&amp;dq=%22%E2%80%9Csmall,+portable+barricade+between+me+and+silence,+submission,+humiliation,+shame%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=9Z_KqrKWtI&amp;sig=ACfU3U1HFFanonuW9aMX7LtuJTOPxUKc6w&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjgrp-o18OHAxV6FVkFHQU9CskQ6AF6BAgnEAM#v=onepage&amp;q=%22%E2%80%9Csmall%2C%20portable%20barricade%20between%20me%20and%20silence%2C%20submission%2C%20humiliation%2C%20shame%22&amp;f=false\">described<\/a> living within the truth as setting up a \u201csmall, portable barricade between me and silence, submission, humiliation, shame.\u201d<\/p><p>Seeing no political possibilities, dissidents reimagined how they should live with others. Their meetings were held underground, in apartments and secret work meetings. They stressed that their actions \u2014 even down to their language \u2014 were not political but pro-social. They took to creating a second culture through films, novels, poetry, music and other mediums as they explored their extreme conditions. Today, this is commonly looked back upon as the golden age for Eastern European literature and art.&nbsp;<\/p><!-- Quote Block Template -->\n\n<figure class=\"quote\">\n\n  <blockquote class=\"quote__container\">\n\n    <div class=\"quote__text\">\n      &#8220;Is anti-politics society\u2019s antibody response against the state\u2019s failures, a symptom of a deeper transformation?&#8221;    <\/div>\n\n    \n    <div class=\"quote__social-media\">\n      <div\n        class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_35 a2a_default_style\"\n        data-a2a-url=\"https:\/\/www.noemamag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wpm-article\/86644\"\n        data-a2a-title='\"Is anti-politics society\u2019s antibody response against the state\u2019s failures, a symptom of a deeper transformation?\"'\n      >\n        <a class=\"a2a_button_facebook\"><\/a>\n        <a class=\"a2a_button_twitter\"><\/a>\n        <a class=\"a2a_button_email\"><\/a>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n  <\/blockquote>\n<\/figure><p>Ultimately, of course, the dissidents were victorious. They won by remaking the social sphere into something that could bludgeon the state. As the cracks accumulated, Soviet rule collapsed under the weight of its own illegitimacy. Some of the writers and heroes of the anti-political underground would <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1989\/12\/10\/books\/czech-writers-politicians-in-spite-of-themselves.html\">go on<\/a> to run for office themselves, despite originally promising otherwise.&nbsp;\n          <div class=\"eos-subscribe-push\">\n            \n            <a target=\"https:\/\/shop.noemamag.com\/?utm_source=MiddleCTA&utm_medium=website\" href=\"https:\/\/shop.noemamag.com\/?utm_source=MiddleCTA&utm_medium=website\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\">Read Noema in print.<\/a>\n            \n          <\/div>\n        <\/p><p>The Eastern European case demonstrates how anti-politics reinvents itself with each new set of material circumstances.<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-today\"><strong>Today<\/strong><\/h2><p>For much of the 20th century, it was accepted that political parties had to be linked to civil society organizations for turnout and legitimacy. This made parties more receptive to public pressure; they had to show interest in bread-and-butter deliverables. Parties also relied on the public and its organizations for funding and leaders.&nbsp;<\/p><p>Over the past few decades, however, civil society organizations <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americansurveycenter.org\/research\/disconnected-places-and-spaces\/\">have eroded<\/a>. As a result, today\u2019s parties struggle to draw sustained, mass participation like they did a century ago. The state is also not dominating public life so punitively, like under Soviet rule, that a second culture is needed. <\/p><p>The conditions are categorically different today. As the tense relationship between the state and everyday people is again being renegotiated, its expression will be unique to the 21st century.\u00a0<\/p><p>Today\u2019s anti-political mood has been building for some time. In \u201cRuling the Void,\u201d published in 2013, Mair documented the unusual convergence of trends across all Western democracies: depressed voter turnout, declining party membership, an increase in independents, wild electoral swings and low participation in civil society organizations. These trends have since deepened and calcified.&nbsp;<\/p><p>Today, voters are less guided by partisan cues. In the U.S., <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/15370\/party-affiliation.aspx\">a plurality<\/a> does not identify with either major party. Consequently, the correlation between one\u2019s class and voter preference <a href=\"https:\/\/newleftreview.org\/sidecar\/posts\/dealignment\">has weakened<\/a>. No longer do voting blocs fit clear schemas and predictive models like they used to. This is the new public that Mair likened to \u201cthe void.\u201d<\/p><p>The reason for these changes is longstanding and structural, but the frustration has been intensified by the internet. As Martin Gurri documented in \u201cThe Revolt of the Public\u201d<em> <\/em>in 2014, the internet has undermined the old, top-down mediators of information. Traditional media no longer exclusively sets the agenda and states cannot effectively rule by persuasion alone. Dominant narratives struggle to hold sway. In Gurri\u2019s words, this means \u201cevery inch of political space is contested\u201d in a horizontal, decentralized media environment.&nbsp;<\/p><p>The explosion of information has led to a collapse of meaning, which has been replaced by pure negation. As philosopher Byung-Chul Han succinctly said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.noemamag.com\/all-that-is-solid-melts-into-information\/\">2022 interview<\/a> in Noema<em>, <\/em>\u201cThe more we are confronted with information, the more our suspicion grows.\u201d This is natural fuel for anti-politics. Gurri similarly argued that government failure now sets the public agenda. Since meaning can no longer be narrativized from the top down, states are unable to easily hide or excuse their failures like before.&nbsp;<\/p><p>Rather than affirm the power center, the internet energizes the \u201cworld of the very small,\u201d in the words of former President of Armenia and physicist Armen Sarkissian. He has likened the internet\u2019s destabilizing effects to quantum mechanics: \u201cYou need just a couple of high-energized particles. They come and hit. And what you get is a chain reaction.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p><p>In January 2022, Sarkissian fell victim to this very phenomenon, only four years after an internet-based swarm had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-europe-43948181\">toppled<\/a> the Armenian government. He <a href=\"https:\/\/armenianweekly.com\/2022\/01\/26\/president-armen-sarkissian-resigns-amid-investigation-into-secret-citizenship\/\">claimed<\/a> that the public had become obsessed with \u201call sorts of conspiracy theories and myths\u201d which was starting to affect his health. In a surprise announcement, he resigned and claimed his presidential office did not have sufficient power to influence events.&nbsp;<\/p><p>Yet, this idea that the internet would deepen the void was not a given. As Gurri writes, implicit in the century-long struggle for suffrage was the belief that \u201conce all the people were inside the system, something magical would happen: the good society.\u201d The internet was once viewed as merely an extension of this long march toward inclusion, one that would only better represent a general interest.&nbsp;<\/p><p>The internet has instead highlighted the inertia and emptiness of political institutions. Today, with little left sacred, these institutions are readily filled by opportunistic outsiders and other political entrepreneurs, who are also shaping the public conversation. Some cynicism has always been part of democratic society, but it is now easily converted into actionable anger.<\/p><!-- Quote Block Template -->\n\n<figure class=\"quote\">\n\n  <blockquote class=\"quote__container\">\n\n    <div class=\"quote__text\">\n      &#8220;Cynicism has always been part of democratic society, but it is now easily converted into actionable anger.&#8221;    <\/div>\n\n    \n    <div class=\"quote__social-media\">\n      <div\n        class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_35 a2a_default_style\"\n        data-a2a-url=\"https:\/\/www.noemamag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wpm-article\/86644\"\n        data-a2a-title='\"Cynicism has always been part of democratic society, but it is now easily converted into actionable anger.\"'\n      >\n        <a class=\"a2a_button_facebook\"><\/a>\n        <a class=\"a2a_button_twitter\"><\/a>\n        <a class=\"a2a_button_email\"><\/a>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n  <\/blockquote>\n<\/figure><p>While the internet has deepened anti-political feelings, preexisting societal conditions laid the groundwork for this to happen. Since the 1970s, political parties across Western democracies have been hollowed out. Their organizations have grown more closed and insular, relying less and less on their constituents for decision-making and funds. The present-day anger, therefore, is not imagined but rooted in longstanding exclusion.<\/p><p>Mair and political scientist Richard S. Katz argued in their <a href=\"https:\/\/global.oup.com\/academic\/product\/democracy-and-the-cartelization-of-political-parties-9780199586011\">2018 book<\/a> that leading Western parties have undergone a process of \u201ccartelization.\u201d Whereas mass parties in the early 20th century were labor-intensive, bottom-up, reformist and relied on members for funding, cartel parties view politics as a profession, depend on a wealthy donor class, possess an in-group mentality and collude with each other to maintain their positions. Because cartel parties rely less on member recruitment, they instead outsource decision-making to institutional bureaucracies, courts and a web of organizations outside of government.<\/p><p>These changes naturally make everyday people feel invisible and secondary. Lacking a direct relationship to the public, political elites are more and more beholden to only themselves. Political parties\u2019 main purpose then becomes simply maintaining their positions. As Mair noted, Western parties have \u201cbecome agencies that govern rather than represent.\u201d In this dynamic, the public\u2019s role in democracy is largely relegated to being a spectator.<\/p><p>It\u2019s unsurprising that the ballot box has become the natural vehicle for anti-politics. Votes can be sudden reminders to political elites that the public still controls some levers. In recent years, populist movements on both the right and left have tapped into anti-political sentiments to unseat the traditionally dominant parties in Western Europe and beyond. In fact, 2024 was the worst year for incumbents <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/e8ac09ea-c300-4249-af7d-109003afb893\">on record<\/a>. In developed countries that held elections, every single governing party lost vote share.<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-american-case\"><strong>The American Case<\/strong><\/h2><p>Modern U.S. history tells a decades-long story of how anti-politics takes root. In the late 1960s, the public grew distrustful and receded while political parties became more insular to protect themselves.<\/p><p>Sometimes called \u201cthe last innocent year,\u201d 1964 was the high point of American institutional trust at 77%, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/politics\/2010\/04\/18\/section-1-trust-in-government-1958-2010\/\">per Gallup polling<\/a>. Both the failed Vietnam War and corruption scandals at home \u2014 such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/event\/Watergate-Scandal\">Watergate<\/a> and the findings of the <a href=\"https:\/\/levin-center.org\/frank-church-and-the-church-committee\/\">Church Committee<\/a> on CIA abuses \u2014 deeply damaged public faith in the following years. By 1979, it had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/politics\/2010\/04\/18\/section-1-trust-in-government-1958-2010\/\">plummeted<\/a> to 29%.&nbsp;<\/p><p>The public responded to the diminishing prospects of politics by turning inward. The 1970s were the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/article\/tom-wolfe-me-decade-third-great-awakening.html\">Me Decade<\/a>,\u201d as journalist Tom Wolfe put it. Former hotbeds of student activism <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/3446222\">calmed<\/a>. Relatively rare during the previous decade, self-help books <a href=\"https:\/\/press.princeton.edu\/books\/paperback\/9780691157917\/the-1970s?srsltid=AfmBOorTcEmmfW1Ahg_Ri7fptL9SohsulB0y6EtjdlwAtLugE688_Vix\">started to fill<\/a> the bestseller lists. Concepts like \u201cburnout\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wilmarschaufeli.nl\/publications\/Schaufeli\/481.pdf\">appeared<\/a> in psychological journals for the first time. As Christopher Lasch <a href=\"https:\/\/wwnorton.com\/books\/The-Culture-of-Narcissism\/\">wrote<\/a> of the period, a &#8220;therapeutic sensibility\u201d was taking over America. No longer were Americans viewing politics as a place to actualize their dreams.&nbsp;<\/p><p>Instead, they looked elsewhere. What was once political became personal. Sociologist Nina Eliasoph has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/books\/avoiding-politics\/F423CDD45D89DA28C21D128CF6C8F90B\">documented<\/a> how this transformation affected even the language of everyday people. In her field studies during the 1980s, she was surprised to find how often words like \u201cdoable\u201d and \u201cpersonal\u201d overlapped with \u201cnon-political,\u201d whereas \u201cnot doable\u201d was associated with \u201caway from home\u201d or \u201cpolitical.\u201d By the end of the 20th century, this passive sensibility was clear at the ballot box. In the 1996 presidential election, voter turnout dropped to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.deseret.com\/1998\/8\/17\/19396960\/presidential-voter-turnout-hit-a-record-low-54-in-1996\/\">historic low<\/a>.<\/p><p>This was not without reason. As the scandals of the 1970s unraveled, both the Republican and Democratic parties reorganized themselves away from the public, justifying this shift under the guise of stability. The public was deemed simply too volatile and emotional to decide politics now.<\/p><p>This gave rise to the so-called \u201cinvisible primary\u201d or \u201cmoney primary\u201d: the primary before the primary, where a candidate is primed for the public by investors and insider allies. It was a turning point in how parties procured funds. In 1976, the Supreme Court ruled in <a href=\"https:\/\/papers.ssrn.com\/sol3\/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5018463\">Buckley v. Valeo<\/a> that election expenditures count as \u201cfree speech,\u201d making dark campaign money legally permissible. Then in 1982, the Hunt Commission <a href=\"https:\/\/inthesetimes.com\/features\/hunt_commission_what_are_superdelegates.html\">codified<\/a> preselected superdelegates as part of the Democratic primary process, further gating party elites from the public.<\/p><p>As the Democrats restructured themselves, Republicans strategized around the rising number of non-voters. In 1977, they <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/5881305\/president-carter-election-reform\/\">filibustered to irrelevance<\/a> President Jimmy Carter\u2019s bill to make voter registration easier. As Pat Buchanan, the future White House communications director for President Reagan, put it: The \u201cbusing of economic parasites and political illiterates\u201d to the polls would mean the end of the insurgent New Right.<\/p><!-- Quote Block Template -->\n\n<figure class=\"quote\">\n\n  <blockquote class=\"quote__container\">\n\n    <div class=\"quote__text\">\n      &#8220;Since meaning can no longer be narrativized from the top down, states are unable to easily hide or excuse their failures like before.&#8221;    <\/div>\n\n    \n    <div class=\"quote__social-media\">\n      <div\n        class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_35 a2a_default_style\"\n        data-a2a-url=\"https:\/\/www.noemamag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wpm-article\/86644\"\n        data-a2a-title='\"Since meaning can no longer be narrativized from the top down, states are unable to easily hide or excuse their failures like before.\"'\n      >\n        <a class=\"a2a_button_facebook\"><\/a>\n        <a class=\"a2a_button_twitter\"><\/a>\n        <a class=\"a2a_button_email\"><\/a>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n  <\/blockquote>\n<\/figure><p>Consultants and pollsters instead became a leading group within the party apparatus, which now lacked strong civil society roots. According to political scientist Costas Panagopoulos, media mentions of political consultancy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/20451833\">increased<\/a> 13-fold from 1979 to 1985. The maintenance of the party cartel became an end in itself for those employed by it, and politics consequently became the art of maintaining this closed-off world.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p><p>The result was the development of a \u201cpermanent campaign,\u201d as political strategist Sidney Blumenthal <a href=\"https:\/\/studsterkel.wfmt.com\/programs\/sidney-blumenthal-discusses-his-book-permanent-campaign-inside-world-elite-political\">famously put it<\/a> in 1980. The ballooning costs of the permanent campaign were simply too high to allow for any outsiders. In many cases, being an incumbent was the ticket to virtually automatic victories. Once you entered the party system, you stayed. As a result, the U.S. has effectively become a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2025\/06\/05\/us\/politics\/congress-age.html\">gerontocracy<\/a>.<\/p><p>Despite both political parties building decades-old moats around themselves, they are still under siege today. In the 21st century, longstanding distrust has hardened into a generalized opposition supercharged by the internet. As if awakened from dormancy, the once-passive public has made its power felt. Both Barack Obama and Donald Trump were victorious despite not being chosen by the invisible primary.<\/p><p>Yet contemporary anti-politics presents us with a glaring contradiction, both in the U.S. and elsewhere. While outsiders tap into the anti-establishment mood to win votes, they struggle to maintain legitimacy once they enter power themselves. This is because anti-politics today is rarely expressed as a positive program.&nbsp;<br>Since there is no clear majority opinion driving it other than general cynicism, what we have instead is \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/meanjin.com.au\/essays\/unpopular-populism\/\">unpopular populism<\/a>.\u201d And as is so often the case, electing a new government does not fundamentally redress the tension; it just briefly pauses it.<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-a-general-opposition\"><strong>A General Opposition<\/strong><\/h2><p>More than half a century ago, American political theorist Robert Dahl speculated that the political future might be motivated by a new principle: \u201can opposition to the democratic leviathan itself.\u201d To the average alienated citizen, the state would become \u201cremote, distant, and impersonal.\u201d Dahl, in many ways, was right.<\/p><p>Today\u2019s political life is dominated by a general discontentment with representation itself. But this is closer to unveiling the true reality of politics than one might assume.&nbsp;<\/p><p>One cannot be nostalgic about past eras of mass politics, as if they had been actually representative. On the contrary, those eras obscured the actual relationship between the state and the public. Back then, after all, powerful political machines relied on bosses in civil society organizations to churn out votes.&nbsp;<\/p><p>This past setup was marginally more representative and sometimes even delivered results, but the American public rejected it in the 1970s precisely because it exposed itself as corrupt. The internet has now converted this longstanding cynicism into raw discontentment. The state\u2019s naked self-interest is so clearly out in the open now, seen for what it is.&nbsp;<\/p><p>Messy as it may be, what has been broken apart cannot be put back together. When anti-politics is the prevailing mood, the most relevant division becomes up versus down, insiders versus outsiders. What is most resented by people is being made invisible.&nbsp;<\/p><p>Any successful future movement will have to position itself as both part of the public <em>and<\/em> prove it can deliver pro-social, material results. A healthier civil society has to be rebuilt from the bottom up. Despite lacking coherence, anti-politics is effectively the real movement: a symptom of a deep fissure that can no longer be ignored.<\/p>\n          <div class=\"eos-subscribe-push\">\n          \n            <a target=\"https:\/\/shop.noemamag.com\/?utm_source=BottomCTA&utm_medium=website\" href=\"https:\/\/shop.noemamag.com\/?utm_source=BottomCTA&utm_medium=website\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\">Enjoy the read? Subscribe to get the best of Noema.<\/a>\n            \n          <\/div>\n        ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7187,"featured_media":86645,"template":"","wpm-article-type":[3],"wpm-article-topic":[19],"wpm-article-tag":[],"class_list":["post-86644","wpm-article","type-wpm-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","wpm-article-type-essay","wpm-article-topic-future-of-democracy"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.0 (Yoast SEO v25.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A New Anti-Political Fervor - NOEMA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How the collapse of political belonging is reshaping democracy.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.noemamag.com\/a-new-anti-political-fervor\/\" 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