AI Summary
5 min readIn a 2022 interview with the New York Times, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reflected on the political energy of the COVID era and said, “I think that during that time there was a huge opening of the Overton window. […] I actually think that the discussions that were had in that time were quite fruitful.” Then she added: “I have a local city councilman that has this saying ‘woke was crazy.’ Okay, that’s it.” For historian Anton Jäger, this moment captures the core dynamic of the era he calls “hyperpolitics”: intense, short-lived political mobilization untethered from durable institutions. People care more about politics than they did in the 1990s, they vote more, they protest in record numbers. But the parties, unions, and civic organizations that once gave those energies shape, discipline, and staying power have hollowed out. The result is a political culture that is frenzied, volatile, and surprisingly inconsequential.
The Structure of Hyperpolitics
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:07) **The Problem Hyperpolitics Diagnoses** - Ezra introduces the difficulty of describing the overall shape of a political era and presents hyperpolitics as a concept that captures the feeling of intense, swinging political energy without stable institutional anchors.
- 2 (02:37) **Defining Hyperpolitics: High Activity, Low Institutionalization** - Jäger gives the core definition: a rise in political activity (voting, protests, violence) that is not matched by a rise in institutional strength (union/party membership decline).
- 3 (05:09) **The Frenzy of Hyperpolitics: Volatility and Short-Termism** - Ezra pushes on the "hyper" aspect—the feeling of issues rising and falling with incredible rapidity (e.g., Black Lives Matter to Trump).
- 4 (07:15) **The Role of Digital Media: Accelerator vs. Prime Mover** - Ezra critiques the book for not fully theorizing the online world, arguing that algorithmically mediated attention is the fundamental driver of hyperpolitics.
- 5 (11:04) **Hyperpolitics Inside Institutions: The Case of AOC** - Ezra argues that even people inside institutions (like the DSA or political parties) exhibit hyperpolitical tendencies—getting invested in "the current thing" and then rapidly abandoning positions.
- 6 (16:23) **The World of Mass Membership Politics: A Historical Contrast** - Jäger describes the immersive, often authoritarian world of 20th-century mass parties, where membership was hereditary and exit costs were high.
- 7 (20:30) **The Ambiguity of Nostalgia: From Indoctrination to Powerlessness** - Ezra challenges the nostalgia for these totalizing parties, noting their capacity for horror and indoctrination.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Behind the intense political movements of the last decade, from Trumpism to wokeness and back again, there’s a strange and erratic rhythm. Movements saturate the culture seemingly overnight, only to evaporate or spark backlash just as rapidly. We’re extremely politically engaged, yet we’ve rarely felt so powerless to create lasting policy change.
I haven’t seen many very successful attempts to explain what is driving this volatility. But one concept that has taken off recently, and captures what so many of us are feeling, is “hyperpolitics.”
The idea comes from Anton Jäger, a historian and contributing writer to New York Times Opinion. In his book “Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization Without Political Consequences,” Jäger theorizes what it means to live in a moment marked by hyper-engagement — high voter turnout, mass protests, trends that flare up and fade with extreme rapidity — yet where institutional trust is low, institutional relationships are decayed and people are disconnected from the structures that make political efforts stick.
I think Jäger’s theory cuts to the core of this political era. So I invited him on the show to break down what hyperpolitics is, how we got here and what it actually takes to build lasting change today.
Mentioned:
“Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization Without Political Consequences” by Anton Jäger
“Hyperpolitics in Command?” by Anton Jäger
“Trump’s Revolutionary Sense of Time Is Changing Politics” by Ivan Krastev
“Public Opinion” by Walter Lippmann
Book Recommendations:
“The Prophet” by Isaac Deutscher
“Cheese” by Willem Elsschot
“Quelques mois dans ma vie” by Michel Houellebecq
“Extension of the Domain of Struggle (Whatever)” by Michel Houellebecq
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