How did ‘learned helplessness’ become commonly used to describe US voters?

"Biden Is Trying to Jolt Us Out of Learned Helplessness About Trump," read the headline of a New York Times op-ed in January, which argued that "[Donald] Trump's exhausting provocations" were wearing out voters who saw opposing the former president's re-election as a "doomed project".

Six months later, the mood was slightly more optimistic. Joe Biden had dropped out of the presidential race and Kamala Harris had taken his spot as the Democratic nominee. "National Democrats seem to have shaken off their perennial sense of learned helplessness," read a July op-ed from the Charlotte Observer.

Feelings of political powerlessness are not new. People who feel as if they are on the "losing side of politics" - meaning their political opponents are in power - can feel a "loss of control", says Dr Christina Farhart, associate professor of political science at Carleton College.

What is different now, she says, is that people across the political spectrum are reporting feeling helpless. No "side" feels as if they're winning. Farhart adds that part of this can be attributed to the chaotic, historic events of the past few years: the pandemic, the fallout from the 2020 presidential election and the January 6 insurrection.

While Harris's nomination has prompted increased engagement from voters in recent months, the national mood had been grim. According to a survey published this March by Fortune magazine, almost half of Americans didn't feel hopeful about the future of the country. A 2022 NPR/Ipsos poll found that 64% of Americans believe US democracy is "in crisis and at risk of failing". And Gallup polls from the last two years have found that the public's trust in US institutions is at an all-time low.

What does so-called learned helplessness really mean, and what does it look like in a political context - like, say, a contentious presidential election?

In the 1960s, back when laws about animal testing were lax, to say the least, the psychologist Martin Seligman and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania developed the theory of "learned helplessness".