Grievance politics thrives on chaos and confusion — but that’s our system now

U.S. President Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. arrive at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 3, 2026. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon

Columnist Chris Clayton noticed something odd in the Trump Administration’s budget for the Department of Agriculture.

Since the USDA is the federal government’s primary contact with rural America, Clayton expected to see the word “rural” in the document. And it was there – 12 times in 92 pages.

But there were other words that seemed to crop up in USDA’s budget more often than rural. Clayton counted. He found that “woke” appears 34 times, “New Green Scam” 21 times, “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion) 26 times, and “transgender” is mentioned 16 times. Yes, “transgender” appears in the Trump USDA budget more than “rural.”

Clayton concluded that the USDA’s budget “focuses as much on what the Trump administration opposes rather than what the administration supports.”

Bingo. What Chris Clayton found is the perfect example of how our political system has changed. Yes, the budget is more about what Trump opposes than what his administration is for. That isn’t a mistake. It is precisely the point.

Two European political scientists describe our current state as “grievance politics.” Grievance politics is not based on parties or issues or solving problems. It is a “new species” of politics that “revolves around the fueling, funneling, and flaming of negative emotions such as fear or anger.” Matthew Flinders and Markus Hinterleitner wrote their paper in 2022 and it describes the politics that now seems to consume much of the world.

The authors contend that traditional politics helped bring about its own demise. Instead of the government acting on the issues confronting society, this responsibility was increasingly loaded onto individuals. Your life, your problem, became a governing principle. Problems festered, which fueled resentment and that helped spawn the new breed of politician.

Some call it “populism,” but that gives grievance politics too much credit. Instead of a movement of people, grievance politics is all about individual politicians. The authors use Donald Trump and Britain’s Boris Johnson as examples of politicians who found success without parties or issues. Instead, they won by generating blame and giving “citizens a target for their negative emotions.”

We’ve all seen it at work. Grievance politics thrives on chaos and confusion. It promotes fear – of stolen elections, immigrants, NATO, Jimmy Kimmel. And this new politics accentuates tribal affiliations.

Flinders and Hinterleitner created a handy chart showing the differences between the old politics of party and issues compared to the new politics of individuals, performance and grievance.

Traditional politics sought to aggregate voters’ preferences through debate and policies. The new politics fuels grievances, generates blame and stokes fear. The old made rules; the new delights in breaking rules. The old was based on hope, belief and realism; the new is shaped by fear, anger and victimhood. The old talked about the responsibilities of citizens while the new turns citizens into an audience watching a game played by celebrities. In the old, politicians followed the norms. In the new politics, norms are there to be shattered.

New form politicians don’t want to change policies. The authors say that grievance politicians “do not have strong policy orientations.” They take positions, sure, but “they also frequently change them, are not particularly interested in their realization, and primarily use them to communicate values.”

In the new politics, actions that would once end a political career – lying, cursing, creating facts out of delusions – are now used to reinforce the idea that the world is divided between “us” and “them.” Grievance politicians actually seek to be blamed as a strategy for building their movements and establishing their authenticity.

The grievance political strategy is easy to see in the daily machinations of the President, but Democrats are getting in on the fun, too. Democratic pols increasingly invoke the Eff -word to describe their opponents.

Remember the “F— Trump” ad in the Illinois Senate race? When House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries was criticized for using “maximum warfare” to describe the Democrats’ redistricting strategy, he barked in his best blame-seeking voice, “You can continue to criticize me for it. I don’t give a damn about the criticism … get lost.” Go ahead and blame me, Jeffries is saying. It only makes me stronger.

Of course, grievance has always been a motivation in politics. But grievance was normally paired with a solution. When the solution was reached, the grievance subsided.

Abolitionists fought slavery, until slavery ended. People protested the Vietnam War, but when the war was over, so was the movement. In Kentucky people organized to control strip mining and compensate miners with black lung. They marched to stop a dam on the Red River. But those movements calmed when federal laws were passed and the dam was cancelled.

Politics today is grievance without a solution and without an end.

Where do we go from here? Are we destined to remain, as Julie Ardery (my wife) describes, a country chock full of Rodney Dangerfields, the comedian who would end his grievance-filled monologues with the pained refrain, “I don’t get no respect.”?

Our European authors don’t have much of a crystal ball. Who does, really? They say it is “plausible” that voters will weary of a political system that provides outrage and confusion, but few solutions. It would help, of course, if there was a grievance-free alternative, but it seems now Democrats want their own candidates of negativity, politicians who tirelessly profess their willingness to “fight.”

That leaves the country in a grievance filled lurch – and with a government that tells us that “woke” is the most important issue in rural America.

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