This presentation argues that medieval mystical theology offers tools that can help us address democratic fragility. Although the nature of populism is contested, one influential definition understands it lays claim to sovereign authority by claiming to represent the people in full. In my reading, mystical theology subjects every claim to sovereignty, including this one, to anarchic negativity. At the same time, the classic exemplars of the tradition also affirm a hierarchical politics. This points to the possibility of resisting authoritarian movements through a practice of agonistic contestation that is never complete. Our societies are divided by hierarchies of race, gender, class, and culture, and those who claim that equality has been achieved only obscure persistent injustice. For this reason, a sustainable politics requires both the affirmation of particular structures and suspicion of those same arrangements. In my view, a negative political theology offers a way to inhabit this tension.