Mass Dissatisfaction

Almost everyone I know is dissatisfied with politics.

If you are paying attention to politics you can see there is a wholesale rejection of parties and politicians happening right now. People are starting to feel that the system itself does not work.

Part of this is driven by material reality. A normal adult life feels harder to build now. Fewer people can buy homes. Fewer people are starting families. Everything feels expensive. Yet government, no matter which party controls the steering wheel, seems fundamentally unable to do anything about it.

Pick almost any political institution and the poll numbers are terrible.

60 percent of Americans dislike Donald trump. A record 86% of Americans disapprove of Congress. 57% percent disapprove of the Democratic Party. Almost 60% of Americans dislike the Republican Party. Americans do not trust anyone in politics.

This level of total alienation is relatively new.

Since Obama’s second term in 2012, no U.S. president has maintained an approval rating above 50% past their first year. Presidents either begin with a short honeymoon and lose it fast, like Biden or Trump’s second term, or they enter office already polarizing, like Trump’s first term.

We may never see genuinely popular presidents or political parties again in our lifetimes.

Politics has entered the Mass Dissatisfaction era.

The Mass Dissatisfaction Era

The timing of this shift is not an accident. Mass dissatisfaction arrived precisely alongside the mainstreaming of social media.

Barack Obama's first term was the final American presidency that still belonged to the legacy media world. By his second term, the internet had become the central nervous system of global politics. It placed every institution under a high-powered microscope, exposing every flaw and failure until politicians all looked corrupt or incompetent.

That’s when you started seeing the effects of mass dissatisfaction politics.

this energy birthed the MAGA movement, which captured the Republican Party by running explicitly against the Republican establishment.

On the left, we are seeing a mirror image, as democratic-socialist factions steadily replace traditional establishment Democrats.

Because these populist movements run purely on rejection, each wave wins by promising to incinerate the legacy of the last party in power. The result is constant whiplash. The public demands real change, so they elect a wrecking ball. When the wrecking ball inevitably fails to fix the underlying machinery (like Trump), the public grows disgusted and immediately begins looking for the next demolition tool.

You can even see mass dissatisfaction in the UK system. The UK used to be governed by prime ministers who lasted for years. Thatcher lasted eleven. Blair lasted ten. Even Cameron lasted six. But since the era of mass dissatisfaction politics, Britain has begun churning through leaders at a much faster pace.

The Rise of the Issue-by-Issue Voter

The natural byproduct of mass dissatisfaction politics is the rise of the independent voter. And you’re going to see a lot more independents as we move forward.

Many people no longer feel genuinely represented by a party. I don’t either.

Think about what a party actually is. It exists to bundle opinions together, to take a hundred positions and sell them as one identity. The internet, meanwhile, unbundles positions. Once people can hear arguments from anywhere, they start holding views that don't fit inside the party line.

The modern voter may want redistribution and tougher policing. He may be anti-war and pro-family. He may be liberal in his private life but conservative about public order.

The modern voter’s views can also change with time. Positions are temporal. He might support immigration during one period and restriction during another. He might support spending on the elderly at one point, but then cut back on spending in other times because they are already wealthy. Voters respond to reality. Which is constantly changing. Parties ask voters to stay loyal to the same position over time.

This independent streak is health,m the modern information environment allows individuals to hold more nuanced, complex opinions and advocate for themselves better than ever before.

The Crisis of Representation

We must understand that mass dissatisfaction is not a passing political mood. It is not going away in a few years. It is the predictable result of representative democracy merging with the internet.

The current system has no answer for a world where voters are fleeing parties to become independents. Representative democracy was structurally engineered around the stability of the party system. When those parties lose public trust, the machinery breaks down and begins creating a perpetual loop of outsider politicians who fail, only to be replaced by new outsiders.

Fortunately, there is an exit ramp. We just have to look back to the original form of democracy.

We use the word democracy as if it means only one thing. But democracy has always had two forms. One is representative democracy. You vote for politicians, and they vote on laws for you. That’s the system breaking down now. The other is direct democracy. You vote on the laws yourself.

Modern countries chose the first version. They built politics around parties, ideologies, donors, and professional politicians. Direct democracy was treated like something old-fashioned. Maybe it worked in ancient Athens, but not in a modern country.

Today, that assumption looks incredibly weak. If the representative layer is the exact thing people no longer trust, the answer cannot be more politicians. It will only keep us in this vicious cycle.

The answer is giving citizens the power to vote directly on the issues.

The Swiss Model

Most people don’t think of Switzerland as a political laboratory.

They think of Switzerland in terms of alpine scenery, luxury watches, and immense wealth.

@mon__voyage

And if you’re going to extend, add on Zermatt! #switzerland #itinerary #traveltips

But what makes Switzerland interesting is the political system, which is genuinely radical.

Switzerland practices the most ancient form of democracy. The same as the one in Ancient Athens. It is a country where citizens vote directly on the laws themselves. The average Swiss exercises a level of sovereignty over their own affairs that makes other western countries like they are under despotism.

That’s because in Switzerland almost any idea can be put directly to voters through a popular referendum. Under the country’s system, if 100,000 people sign a petition, they can trigger a public referendum

@cedichronicles

What is Switzerland’s direct democracy? It’s a political system where citizens play a central role in decision-making through frequent ref... See more

This does not lead to chaotic mob rule. Voters love having the final say but they do not want to overturn society. The vast majority of initiatives are resoundingly rejected by the public once they reach the ballot.

This works because politics is not a technical question for experts.

A politician is not an expert in the way an engineer, a doctor, or a power-grid operator is. Real experts can build bridges, and fix your refrigerator. They can explain what is technically possible and outline the trade-offs.

But they cannot decide what a society should care about most.

Choosing between lower taxes or more social services, more immigration or less, economic growth or environmental preservation, security or individual privacy, these are not technical equations. They are profound choices of human priority. Priorities cannot be outsourced, they must come from the people who actually have to live with the consequences.

A Mix of Left and Right Wing Policies

When citizens vote on individual laws rather than bundled political parties, the results do not fit into a neat left-wing or right-wing playbook. A party platform is a fiction, human populations are far more complex.

Consider what Swiss voters have accepted and rejected over the years.

The Swiss rejected universal basic income. They rejected six weeks of paid vacation. They rejected a national climate fund. Then they passed same-sex marriage. Wrote a net-zero climate law. Approved individual taxation that ended the marriage penalty. Voted against raising the corporate tax. They handed shareholders power over executive pay and banned golden parachutes. They banned minarets and face coverings. They struck down a cap on total population which would have banned immigration.

No single political party on Earth could ever run on this platform. It represents a living, shifting set of priorities unique to the Swiss populace.

The California Example

You do not have to travel to Europe to see this mechanism in action, you can see it in California, the wealthiest state in America, which features a robust voter-initiative system.

In representative politics, California is viewed as a monolithically progressive state. It consistently votes Democratic and sends Democrats to Washington. But when you ask Californians to vote directly on unbundled issues, a completely different, highly complex population emerges.

In 1978, voters passed Proposition 13, one of the most important anti-tax measures in American history. It capped property taxes and made future tax increases harder. This was not progressive politics. It was a homeowner revolt against the state.

In 1994, voters approved Proposition 184, the Three Strikes law, one of the harshest criminal sentencing measures in the world. It came out of a moment when crime felt out of control.

Then crime changed. In 2012, voters narrowed Three Strikes. In 2014, they passed Proposition 47, reducing some nonviolent felonies to misdemeanors. But when crime went back up they changed again in 2024, voters passed Proposition 36, increasing penalties for certain theft and drug crimes. Preferences are temporal, not fixed.

At the same time, California voters they passed Proposition 215, legalizing medical marijuana. Later, in 2016, they legalized recreational marijuana too. In 1996, voters passed Proposition 209, banning affirmative action in public education, employment, and contracting.

Direct democracy is inherently unpredictable because you cannot assume how a person votes for a politician tells you anything about how they will vote on a specific law. That is exactly why it is the only viable exit ramp from our current crisis. It dissolves the artificial bundling of modern political parties and allows a complex, modern population to express its true, ever-changing priorities.

10 Arguments for Direct Democracy

1) We Inherently Rexognize Direct Democracy as More Legitimate

When nations face decisions like rewriting a constitution, or permanently altering their borders, such as the UK’s Brexit vote, or independence referendums from Quebec to Scotland, they do not leave it to a vote in parliament. They bypass the political class entirely and hold a direct referendum.

Governments do this because they instinctively recognize a fundamental truth. A decision that changes the trajectory of a country forever requires an absolute level of moral authority that a room full of career politicians simply cannot manufacture. There is a finality to a direct popular vote. Even those who lose tend to accept the verdict, because you cannot claim a decision was rigged by a tiny elite when your own neighbors are the ones who outvoted you.

Direct democracy carries an inherent, self-evident legitimacy that representation can only pretend to borrow.

2) The Modern Internet already Conditions Us for Direct Democracy

Subscribe to Premium to read the rest.