What ‘Hyperpolitics’ Explains About This Era

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Ezra Klein (0:39)

One of the hardest things to do is describe the overall shape, texture, rhythm of a political era. We'll talk about wokeness.

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All cops are bastards! Woke one was crazy.

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Woke one was crazy.

Ezra Klein (0:54)

We'll talk about Trumpism.

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I was saved by God to make America great again.

Ezra Klein (1:03)

But getting at the overall form in which they all take place is really, really difficult.

One idea for this that has taken off a bit recently, that I've been hearing a lot around me, is hyperpoliticization.

Hyperpolitics is a concept from Anton Jäger. He's a historian and contributing writer at New York Times Opinion and he's also the author of this book, Hyperpolitics, Extreme Politicization Without Political Consequences. What he's describing is an era in which politics feels like it is everywhere. The intensity of political opinion and commitment is really, really, really high, that things are swinging wildly from one side to the other. But things are not securely attached to political institutions and structures. And so these powerful periods of intense mobilization don't seem to have lasting consequence. I think it's a really interesting way of trying to get at what is happening behind what we're all feeling. He joins me now.

Anton Jäger, welcome to the show.

Anton Jäger (2:11)

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Ezra Klein (2:12)

So let's just begin at the beginning. What is hyperpolitics?

Anton Jäger (2:17)

Hyperpolitics is a concept that describes a change in political culture in the West in which we see an increase in political activity on a variety of metrics, whether it's voting, protest, but also political violence.

But that increase in political activity is not matched by an increasing institutional strength. So if you look at the indices of union membership, party membership, or other civil society organizations, those have stagnated or have continued to decline. And that is a situation, I think, which doesn't really have a proper precedent across the 20th century, maybe also not the 19th. And for that reason, I introduced a concept to make sense of a new confusing political present.

Ezra Klein (3:00)

So you're describing a situation in which people and moments feel more political. In some cases, they're doing more political things. You have huge mass protests, like in Black Lives Matter.

But there is a deinstitutionalized reality to politics. They're not parts of parties in the way they once were. Union, civic organizations are in decline. And so they're not civically or institutionally attached. It's this kind of mixture of political activity absent institutional membership.

Anton Jäger (3:34)

That's right, yes. And of course, the story I'm telling is a historical one. And it comes with contrasts. So if you're using these two axes politicization, as I call it, an institutionalization, you can get a certain chronology of political forms as well. So I talk about the mass politics of the 20th century, which could be highly politicized, particularly, let's say, the 1920s and 1930s, but was also very heavily institutionalized. To be politically active often meant to be in an institution.

And I contrast it also to the post politics of the 1990s, of the 2000s, as it's called, in which you had a decline on both of those indices. So low institutionalization and low politicization. And what we're looking at now indeed is this strange scissor shape. Namely, a lot of political activity has also become easier, and it's become more necessary to pursue it. But it doesn't really have an institutional form, so it feels very incoherent. And as I claim, that also means it doesn't have as many policy consequences as it used to have.

Ezra Klein (4:34)

So I don't want to question your definition of your own concept.

But one thing I feel like that doesn't quite pick up on, but which is part of why this idea has resonated, is the hyperness of hyperpolitics. This feeling of things rising and falling with incredible rapidity. It's like one year, you're deep inside Black Lives Matter, and wokeness, and then it's like the vibes have shifted to Trump, and then they come all the way back. Nothing seems to last, but everything seems incredibly important. You have a very thoughtful, iconic style here. But I want to get at this kind of frenzied nature of it, which you do describe in the book.

Anton Jäger (5:16)

Yes. So I think the volatility or the frenzy you're pointing at is a quintessential feature of the phenomenon I'm describing. Because what do institutions do with political activity? They stabilize it and they give it longevity over a longer time period.