The Psychology of Political Apathy

We can’t keep pretending neutrality is noble. It’s just quiet complicity dressed up in politeness.

Illustration by Abdelafatah Mukhtar

I learned a long time ago that apathy isn’t born in silence; it’s manufactured in exhaustion. Back in 2014, I was coming off a breakup that had been two years in the making — the kind where both people keep trying to resurrect a relationship that’s already gone to glory.

My ex wasn’t the villain; she was just honest enough to see what I wouldn’t. She saw that I was faking my faith, and worse, that I wasn’t even good at faking it anymore. I’d still show up to church, still bow my head at dinner, still mouth the prayers, but the spark was gone. By then, I’d started quietly rebelling against the guilt-based Christianity we’d both been raised in, and she could tell. She needed a man of God; I was becoming a man of questions. The breakup felt inevitable, like watching the credits roll on a movie I’d already seen twice and didn’t like either time. When it finally ended, I did what most emotionally unprepared men do: I downloaded every dating app that existed. Tinder, SoulSwipe, Coffee Meets Bagel — if an algorithm claimed it could find love, I was willing to let it ruin my evening.

At first, I told myself I was looking for connection. But what I found instead was a sociology experiment in miniature. My profile even said, “Not interested in anyone with religious hangups,” because after my last relationship, I’d had my fill of sanctified guilt. But I quickly learned that faith wasn’t the only ideology looking for converts. I started running into women whose political views were just as rigid as my ex’s religion. Some were kind, some were nuts, and some seemed like they’d swiped right just to convert me. One of my boys — let’s call him “D” — met this woman who was sweet but deeply religious. He told me she wanted a “church boy,” and I laughed and said, “Dude, you ain’t exactly a man of the cloth.” He shrugged and said, “Who cares? She’s hot.” That’s when I told him, “All right, man, do your thing.”

But over the next few months, I watched that man transform. Suddenly he was praying over appetizers at Buffalo Wild Wings, inviting me to his church, and posting scripture memes between Lakers highlights. He wasn’t a believer; he was being discipled by proximity.

Then came the plot twist: She got pregnant. Within weeks he was talking about marriage, saying things like “God has a plan” and “maybe this is my purpose.” A man who once skipped Easter brunch because of a hangover was now quoting Corinthians and talking about baptism classes. They got married fast — like, tax-season fast. The irony, of course, was that the self-proclaimed “church girl” got pregnant before the vows, proving once again that nothing spreads faster than selective morality.

Just like that, my homeboy was officially a “man of God,” complete with Facebook check-ins from Sunday service and a wife who handled the testimonies while he played the tambourine.

Then one of my homegirls — call her “T” — started dating a church deacon. At first, she was happy. She’s an educated woman with multiple degrees and a background in psychology, so she figured she could handle a little religiosity. But a few months in, she told me she was done. “He’s too deep into it,” she said. “He wants a housewife, not a partner.” I wasn’t surprised — T’s the kind of woman who’d psychoanalyze you for fun, not fold your laundry for Jesus.

A few weeks later, I ran into the deacon at Barney’s Beanery in Pasadena. He was friendly, even offered to buy me a drink, so we ended up upstairs shooting pool. After a few rounds, I asked why it didn’t work out with T. He sighed like a man carrying the weight of the Ten Commandments and said, “I thought I could turn her into a church girl.” When I asked why he didn’t just date one, he said — and I swear this man looked me dead in the eye — “Those women think they know everything. I need someone I can train.”

That’s when it hit me: He wasn’t looking for love, he was looking for a student.

That’s when I started seeing the same pattern everywhere. Apathy isn’t just silence — it’s submission. It’s what happens when people give up authorship of their own minds. Missionary work thrives on that principle. You don’t convert the faithful; you recruit the faithless. Find someone who’s searching, broke, or broken, and promise them a better horizon. That’s how religion grows in underdeveloped countries and how ideologies grow in underdeveloped democracies. People mistake guidance for salvation.

Political apathy works the same way. Blank slates are easy to radicalize. Poor people, overworked people, exhausted people — all of them are vulnerable to whoever arrives first with an answer. It’s why political recruiters talk like motivational speakers and why populists sound like prosperity preachers. They both sell the same drug: hope with hidden terms.

I saw this psychology up close during my “swiping era.” Not every woman I matched with was politically unhinged, but enough of them were on a mission that I eventually had to put “No Republicans” in my bio. And it wasn’t because I was trying to make a statement — it was self-defense. What I learned was that some MAGA types were actively looking for politically apathetic people because they could be nurtured. Someone who says, “I don’t really follow politics,” might as well have said, “Teach me how to think.” And that’s exactly the kind of person an extremist wants. I realized a lot of these matches weren’t looking for boyfriends—they were looking for political acolytes. Watching them and watching my friends fall under similar spells made one thing clear: conversion doesn’t always happen in a pew. Sometimes it happens over cocktails.

Years later, around late 2020, I ran into “D” again. He’d divorced the church girl. Turns out, they’d fallen apart when he wanted to get their daughter vaccinated and she refused. For him, vaccines were non-negotiable. His grandmother had contracted polio when she was young because she’d never been vaccinated, and he’d grown up watching what that disease did to her. For him, science wasn’t political; it was personal. But his wife saw vaccination as betrayal. That was the moment he woke up. When he told me that story, he described his old life as a blur. He said, “Man, I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted somebody to have fun with.” He’s now remarried to a pharmacist, their kids are vaccinated, and he laughs about how far gone he was. That’s apathy in a nutshell — not evil, not ignorance, just the slow erosion of critical thought.

Even though I’ve always leaned left, I never liked identifying with a political party. I studied realignment and dealignment; I knew how quickly party platforms could shift, how ideologies evolve for convenience. But when MAGA came roaring in around 2016, neutrality stopped being an option. I registered as a Democrat — not because I suddenly found religion in the DNC, but because I needed to draw a line. I didn’t want anyone thinking I was someone who could be talked into that circus. It wasn’t about loyalty; it was about clarity.

Researchers have long noted that political apathy grows when people lose trust in institutions and when the media rewards spectacle over substance. Social identity theory helps explain why. Humans crave belonging. We define ourselves by our groups, and when we don’t have one, we become easy prey for anyone who offers us a ready-made identity. That’s why groupthink works — the comfort of agreement feels safer than the discomfort of curiosity. Learned helplessness plays its part, too: The more powerless people feel, the less they believe engagement matters. Preference falsification — the tendency to hide our true beliefs to avoid conflict — keeps us quiet even when we know better. And all of that, mixed with a little cognitive dissonance, creates a country where silence feels like sanity.

Apathy doesn’t sprout from ignorance. It’s cultivated. Even prison chaplains say proselytizing and conversion are rampant behind bars. The environment is closed, choices are limited, and faith fills the vacuum. The same logic applies outside. When life feels chaotic, people outsource their certainty. That’s why movements, Multi Level Marketing groups, and megachurches all sound the same. They promise you a family, a purpose, and a miracle if you just surrender. The pitch is always identical: “You’ll be part of something bigger than yourself. You’ll make your parents proud. Imagine buying your mom a house.” Whether it’s Jesus, essential oils, or “making America great again,” the formula never changes.

The Federal Trade Commission once described MLMs as systems that make you both a missionary and a salesman. That’s how ideology works, too — you believe, you recruit, you replicate. The product is you. And when it all falls apart, they call it your fault for “not wanting it enough.” It’s pyramid-scheme psychology applied to patriotism.

And then there’s our cultural obsession with neutrality, which might be the most dangerous performance of all. Some folks treat being apolitical as a moral compass, as if disengagement were enlightenment. Writers have argued that neutrality isn’t even possible; claiming to be above politics simply means you’re privileged enough to ignore who’s getting crushed underneath it. The privilege of silence is still privilege.

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But nowhere is this brand of cowardice more visible than in celebrity culture. Case in point: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, the man whose entire brand is built on being loud, decisive, and absurdly confident, went on Fox News’ Will Cain show — yes, that Will Cain — and announced that after endorsing Biden in 2020, he wouldn’t endorse anyone in 2024 because it “caused division.” That’s like saying you’re quitting firefighting because fires are too hot. The Rock going on Fox News to talk about unity is like me doing a TED Talk on minimalism while standing in a Costco. He told Cain he wanted to “bring people together.” Translation: his PR team told him not to mess with his international market share. It’s not growth; it’s brand management, if you smell what The Rock is cooking.

I get it — no one wants to alienate half their fanbase. But when someone who built his empire on conviction suddenly finds enlightenment in neutrality, it’s laughable. We’ve been taught since childhood not to talk about religion or politics at work, to “keep things civil,” to “stay apolitical.” But that’s how political illiteracy germinates. It’s social conditioning that trains us to confuse silence with wisdom. Every time someone with influence pretends that both sides deserve equal consideration, we flatten reality into entertainment. The Rock doesn’t want to divide anyone; he just doesn’t want to be held accountable. That’s not maturity — it’s moral Botox.

I’m not saying people should lead every conversation with their politics. I’m saying you shouldn’t be ashamed of your beliefs if they’re rooted in love and respect. That’s what engagement means — showing up with empathy, not aggression. But apolitical behavior has consequences. It’s why vaccine skeptics get equal airtime with virologists, why Republicans went from arguing about the seriousness of global warming to outright denying its existence. It’s why we now live in a world where people proudly call themselves flat-earthers. This is what happens when we elevate neutrality over knowledge — when “everyone’s entitled to their opinion” replaces “some opinions are objectively wrong.” Political apathy turned “both sides” into a business model.

We’ve spent decades rewarding people for being “above politics,” as if democracy were a sport for others to play while we critique from the stands. The result? Ninety million Americans sat out the 2024 election, and we act like that’s just another statistic instead of a five-alarm fire. When I look at that number, I don’t see laziness; I see learned helplessness. People so exhausted by chaos and bad faith that disengagement feels like peace. But peace without participation is surrender.

Political apathy has become so pervasive that there are now movements outright encouraging people not to vote. Even some public figures have built brands around this nonsense. Dr. Umar Johnson has made a habit of telling Black audiences that voting is useless, which is as reckless as it is predictable. He couches it in talk about “self-reliance” and “not begging politicians,” but it’s the same nihilism repackaged with a dash of charisma. You can’t preach empowerment while discouraging participation. That’s not liberation, it’s surrender with better branding.

And when celebrities joined the apathy parade, it only made things worse. Some stars refused to back Biden (later Harris) in 2024 because of the handling of Gaza, which is their right — but let’s not pretend silence is activism. Several artists, from Cardi B to Macklemore, openly said they wouldn’t be voting at all, while others like Dwayne Johnson chose to sit safely on the sidelines, saying they wouldn’t endorse anyone after their 2020 support “caused division.” Different flavors of the same disease. And I can promise you: not one Republican was upset about it. When people on the left sit out, the right throws a parade. Apathy always helps the side that depends on it most.

We can’t keep pretending neutrality is noble. It’s just quiet complicity dressed up in politeness. The goal isn’t to yell louder than everyone else — it’s to stop apologizing for caring. Because caring, inconveniently enough, is still how change happens.

The truth is, political apathy is the GOP’s favorite voter base. They don’t need to win every argument; they just need enough people to stop participating. Every uncast ballot is a silent endorsement of the status quo. Republicans understand this better than anyone. They’ve mastered the art of confusion—flooding the information ecosystem with just enough nonsense to make people throw up their hands and say, “Everyone’s corrupt,” or “Both sides are the same.” That’s not cynicism; that’s conditioning. When people stop believing in government, extremists become the only ones speaking with conviction.

Democrats can’t afford to keep ignoring this psychology heading into 2026 and 2028. The fight isn’t just about persuasion anymore — it’s about inoculation. You can’t inspire people who’ve been taught to distrust hope. You have to meet apathy with clarity, fatigue with empathy, and despair with competence. If Democrats don’t start treating disengagement like the existential threat it is, the next wave of political radicalization won’t come from true believers — it’ll come from people who believed in nothing. And that’s the scariest ideology of all.

Kristoffer Ealy is a political science professor who teaches at California State University Fullerton. He is the author of the upcoming book, Political Illiteracy: Learning the Wrong Lessons.