Politics Is For Other People

When we asked Ryan who he thinks pays more attention to politics. He first told us “people on campuses” and then expanded: “I think it’s people [who are] more well off in that, like, safety isn’t the first thing that they think of when they leave their house in the morning. You know [...] when you’re not looking over your shoulders constantly, you have, like, time to think.” We asked all of our participants to describe how they pictured someone more politically involved than themselves. The single most common response was “people in suits.”

Almost half of the people we interviewed explicitly told us they think of politics as something by and for better-off, higher-income, White, or otherwise more privileged people. They explained that well-off people already have the resources and knowledge needed to participate in politics, as well as the power to exclude others from participating. 

Jordan, a 26-year-old Black man who survived on gig work and food stamps, told us why he thinks richer people are more likely to participate: “I think because their voice matters because they’re better off. [...] If you’re better off that means some type of power or some type of money is being contributed to something. And that’s really what all politics is, is who has the bigger stick and somebody who’s struggling, or not where they need to be, or just living paycheck to paycheck, your voice don’t matter cause they see you as a number, but if you’re better off, they know your name.” He concluded his interview by telling us he doesn’t vote, because he knows that, at “the end of the day, it’s not up to me and it’s not up to the people that’s in my neighborhood.”

Case Study: Lala

We interviewed Lala, a Black single mother in West Philadelphia, both in 2018 when she was 26, and again in 2024 at 32. Lala had a high school degree and had attended trade school. She worked at a donut shop in 2018 and by 2024 had left the workforce due to a disability. She described her political participation as below average, and finds the whole process stressful and discouraging. She often hesitated sharing her thoughts, frequently saying she didn’t know or lacked confidence in her views, but she was one of our most insightful respondents. The last time she voted was for Obama, driven by the hope that the first Black president would change her life. But after seeing little progress, she lost faith in the power of politics to create the change she envisioned. She thought she would get involved again if she believed real change was possible. When asked what “politics” meant to her, Lala answered:

“People in power that have money and that are above us and that don’t really fully understand struggles like being in debt, having a child, being on welfare. I think that’s what it’s like, a disconnection, that’s probably what I associate it with.”

When we asked what kinds of people she thought would be more politically involved than her, she replied:

“They probably know more about what’s going on, maybe they […] talk to people who are running and they might be around those people so they might see what’s going on. But when you don’t see it and you’re just like working, you probably don’t know unless you’re really involved. [. . .] They probably know who’s corrupt, they probably know who’s for people, but I really don’t know who to trust so I’m just like… I don’t know.”

Lala is worried, like many of our respondents, that she does not have the connections or inside knowledge to discern which candidates are “corrupt” and which are “for people.” Lala often framed her political views through her experiences as a Black woman; she told us: “I think as Black people we feel like our vote doesn’t matter.” Lala’s disillusionment runs deep. Politics feels overwhelming, depressing, and hopeless, especially when there do not seem to be any avenues for improvement. She told us:

“People tell you that your vote matters and I feel like it doesn’t and every time it’s a person who doesn’t really get us or isn’t there for us.”

In both her interviews, Lala expressed what we heard from so many others: that politics does not include her. Her disengagement is rooted in personal and community experience, alongside an acute awareness of her position. Though she doesn’t always understand political jargon, she is highly aware of her place as a working-class Black woman navigating obstacles like limited access to jobs, education, and upward mobility for her daughter. She often spoke in terms of “we,” grounding her views in collective experience. That same group identity shapes both her withdrawal (“I don’t vote”) and her cautious openness to re-engage (“I wouldn’t say I would never do it again”).

Lala illustrates both our key findings in this section: she sees politics as “not for me” as well as specifically for other, more privileged people. She sees politics as out of reach, but she also simply doesn’t see herself as the kind of person who votes. Her disinterest is reinforced by those in her network (no one she knows votes regularly) and a deep cynicism: she believes that nothing changes, voting doesn’t matter, and all politicians are the same and don’t care about people and communities like hers. That view isn’t abstract; it comes from real experience. She voted for Obama and was excited when he won, and then didn’t bother again because, she said, “I don’t know… what he actually did, ‘cause I’m still doing the same things.”