The Dynamics of Anti-Establishment Politics

Abstract Recent work theorizes that the American mass opinion space is organized along two broad, uncorrelated dimensions––a left–right one and an “anti-establishment” one––that jointly explain recent events in American politics, such as the election of Donald Trump and belief in conspiracy theories. In this paper, we test several previously untested predictions of this theory, including those involving temporal dynamics. Utilizing a time series of cross-sectional surveys spanning 2019–2024 and a 2024 three-wave panel survey, we offer five findings: (i) the two dimensions remain empirically distinct; (ii) the initially orthogonal left–right and anti-establishment dimensions become moderately correlated by 2024; (iii) by 2024, this change is driven primarily by movement of the left–right dimension towards the anti-establishment one; (iv) anti-establishment sentiments are associated with two-party vote choice and presidential primary candidate preferences; and (v) anti-establishment orientations are associated with preferences for reducing government spending on science, public health, and foreign aid.