Waiting for the rupture: Anticipation, impasse, and the temporal politics of a populist counterpublic

Abstract This article examines redemptive temporal narratives among Finnish social media influencers situated within a conspiritual epistemic counterpublic. Drawing on 25 interviews, the study analyses the temporal and epistemic dimensions shaping this counterpublic's discourse on the past, present, and future. The analysis shows that temporal narratives follow a recurring pattern in which the past and future are idealised, while the present is framed as a sociopolitical dystopia approaching a rupture. Employing Lauren Berlant's concept of impasse, the article demonstrates how anticipatory temporal narratives reorganise experiences of stagnation and political powerlessness. Waiting becomes a form of political practice: by positioning themselves as witnesses to an imminent tipping point, the influencers maintain a sense of agency without immediate institutional change. Spiritual frameworks of meaning-making support this optimism while amplifying populism's counter-epistemic tendencies. The findings show how epistemic certainty and perceived imminence sustain an anticipatory politics that challenges institutional knowledge while privileging alternative truth claims.