In this ECPS interview, Dr. Justin Patch argues that, in the age of populism, politics increasingly unfolds as a struggle over aesthetics. Rather than being peripheral, cultural forms—music, memes, and DIY practices—are central to how “the people” are experienced and constructed. As he notes, “the primary terrain of public contestation becomes aesthetic,” as citizens navigate complex political realities through affect, symbolism, and participation. While democracy depends on the capacity to feel “part of something larger than yourself,” this same impulse creates openings for populist capture. By showing how art can function as both democratic expression and ideological instrument, Patch highlights a central tension: aesthetic experience sustains collective belonging yet also enables its manipulation by populist and authoritarian actors.
Interview by Selcuk Gultasli
In this ECPS interview, Dr. Justin Patch, Assistant Professor of Music at Vassar College, offers a powerful account of how politics in the age of populism increasingly unfolds through aesthetics—through sound, image, gesture, affect, and participatory cultural forms. Rather than treating music, memes, art, or DIY production as peripheral to political life, Dr. Patch argues that they are central to how citizens experience belonging, identity, and representation. As he puts it, “the primary terrain of public contestation becomes aesthetic.”
The interview begins by situating democratic culture in practices that emerge from below. Historically, Dr. Patch notes, “the part we celebrate is the work done underneath the state.” From farmers’ organizations to populist gatherings, music, dancing, hymn singing, sewing circles, and potluck dinners created forms of sociability through which “the people” could recognize themselves as political actors. The crucial distinction, he argues, is between culture produced by communities themselves and culture appropriated by state actors or those seeking “state capture.”
This distinction becomes more urgent when Dr. Patch turns to the affective power of political mobilization. Democracy, he argues, depends on people feeling that they are “part of something larger than yourself.” Yet this same need is also democracy’s vulnerability. Populism, authoritarianism, and radical-right movements can offer the same emotional intensity and collective belonging while redirecting it toward exclusionary or leader-centered projects. “Unfortunately,”he warns, “that same need to feel part of something larger can be hijacked.”
A major theme of the conversation is how music and popular culture translate resentment into political identity. Dr. Patch explains that art can become “a proxy for political thought” because of its emotional accessibility. Whether in CasaPound’s punk and hardcore scenes, white-power music networks, or strands of country music, cultural forms can provide “social and emotional cues,” “cognitive shortcuts,” and a language through which grievance becomes durable belonging.
The interview also explores digital populism and the politics of re-signification. In Trump-era memes, parody videos, and online bricolage, Dr. Patch identifies an “aesthetic of domination” in which cultural materials are appropriated, inverted, and weaponized. The ability “to take something associated with one set of values and reframe it entirely,” he argues, becomes a symbolic victory.
Yet Dr. Patch does not reduce popular culture to manipulation. He insists on the democratic importance of self-expression, arguing that “democracy is about a kind of self-expression that communicates with others.” The challenge, then, is to cultivate aesthetic literacy without suppressing popular creativity. Art, he concludes, can be “a pedagogical tool” for learning how to live with difference—and for recognizing humanity “even in the face of profound disagreement.”
