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It’s time to retire ‘rigged system’ populism

The Hill

PoliticsThe Hill·Jul 17, 2026·4 min read

It’s time to retire ‘rigged system’ populism

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

America at 250 seems stuck in a miasma of rival populisms that offer irreconcilable visions for curing what ails our country. Yet both the MAGA right and the socialist left start from the same demoralizing premise: The system is rigged!

That is the battle cry of today’s populist ascendancy, and it has undeniable potency. It is upsetting but vague enough to be impossible to prove or disprove. It can be counted on to rile up voters while at the same time stripping them of agency.

How can ordinary working families control their destinies if “the system” — whatever that is — is controlled by a shadowy cabal of globalists or billionaires? Telling people that they’re the suckers in a rigged political game breeds cynicism and fatalism, opening the door to demagogues who promise to overthrow the riggers if given unchecked power.

This paranoia-inducing gambit certainly has worked for President Trump. But democratic socialists like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani also parrot the “rigged system” canard to ignite left-wing militancy.

Judging by today’s scorched earth partisanship and the constant turnover of governing power, however, it doesn’t seem to be working for the American people. Nonetheless, they’ve internalized their leaders’ debilitating pessimism.

According to FrameWorks, which has been surveying public opinion on this question since 2020, 70 percent of Americans agree that people in power have rigged the system to benefit themselves. That includes strong majorities of Democrats and Republicans and voters across lines of race, income, gender and age. Young people are the most fervent believers — 81 percent of those 18 to 29 years old think the system is rigged.

The report concludes that “the system is rigged mindset is among the strongest and most pervasive we’ve seen in American culture.” It stimulates a public appetite for dramatic if obscure change; 61 percent say “our society needs to be radically restructured.”

There’s no consensus behind what that means in practice. Populists chant the “system is rigged” mantra to portray themselves as truth-telling rebels fighting nefarious elites. But rather than inspiring Americans to demand concrete and achievable reforms, these political Bravehearts keep voters in a perpetual state of rage against whoever is in power.

And by creating unrealistic expectations for a sweeping reordering of society, populist grievance-mongering makes the policy solutions generated by the normal give-and-take of politics seem hopelessly incremental.

That’s how we’ve wound up with boneheaded panaceas like Trump’s tariffs, which are driving up the cost of living while failing to “bring back” manufacturing jobs, as well as the left’s utopian demands to open the borders, swiftly rid the world of fossil fuels and replace “capitalism” with “degrowth.“

In less febrile times, “rigged system” rhetoric would have been dismissed as just another conspiracy theory. The phrase first gained wide currency during the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests following a housing bust that nearly tanked the U.S. financial system and sparked the 2008-2009 Great Recession.

Spreading across the left-right spectrum like an invasive weed, the slogan became a Tea Party staple and the centerpiece of Trump’s insurgent 2016 presidential campaign. As he explained it, blue collar Americans were victimized by treasonous “deep state” elites who invited illegal immigrants to flood the country and signed trade agreements that allowed other countries to “steal” U.S. factory jobs.

Now Sanders and the new crop of urban democratic socialists backed by Democratic Socialists of America whip up fury against billionaires and corporate oligarchs who supposedly have hijacked the system to enrich themselves at workers’ expense.

Economic inequality is a real problem. It could and should be mitigated by a resumption of rational policymaking and bipartisan cooperation in Washington. But if you believe America’s $32 trillion, continent-spanning, decentralized private economy can be controlled by a roomful of rich puppeteers, I’ve got some $Trump meme coins I’d like to sell you.

Populist theatrics, divorced from the prosaic work of consensus-building and problem-solving, degenerate into political escapism. Politicians who indulge in it are fouling their own nests, not leading. Democrats should offer something different — a radical pragmatism aimed at reviving America’s legendary optimism and can-do spirit.

Trump’s economic blunders give them an opportunity to become the party of national prosperity again. Democrats also should raise taxes on the superrich, restore robust investment in science and space exploration, inject competition into calcified markets, whittle down the national debt and lower living costs by expanding the supply of housing and other necessities rather than imposing political control on prices. And instead of freezing AI, they should champion public-private collaboration to share its productivity gains.

America needs new leaders who engender hope rather than “rigged system” defeatism. They could start by affirming President Bill Clinton’s confidence-inspiring conviction that there’s nothing wrong with America that can’t be cured by what’s right with America.

Will Marshall is founder and president of Progressive Policy Institute.