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If you’re like me and find that understanding chaotic times is reassuring—even when you can’t change the situation—I highly recommend The Revolt of the Public. Written in 2014, before Trump’s first electoral win, it didn’t predict that win exactly … but in a way, it did.
Martin Gurri, a former CIA analyst of the old-school variety—the kind who read newspapers and books to make predictions—offers a fascinating perspective on the rise of social media. He explores how it has given the public unprecedented access to “the meat grinder”—the dirty, messy reality of politics. The public hasn’t liked what they’ve seen, and through Obama and Trump in the U.S., as well as Brexit in the U.K., they’ve attempted to reform their governments—though without a clear vision of what government should be.
Gurri traces these upheavals (and more!) back to their roots and, in the end, presents a vision of the future that is hopeful rather than fearful—one that adapts to social media rather than trying to put the genie back in the bottle. Oh, and the book has negative reviews from both the right and the left … which, in my humble centrist opinion, is always a plus.
The blurb: How insurgencies—enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere—have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world.
In the words of economist and scholar Arnold Kling, Martin Gurri saw it coming. Technology has categorically reversed the information balance of power between the public and the elites who manage the great hierarchical institutions of the industrial age: government, political parties, the media. The Revolt of the Public tells the story of how insurgencies, enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere, have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world.
Originally published in 2014, The Revolt of the Public is now available in an updated edition, which includes an extensive analysis of Donald Trump’s improbable rise to the presidency and the electoral triumphs of Brexit. The book concludes with a speculative look forward, pondering whether the current elite class can bring about a reformation of the democratic process and whether new organizing principles, adapted to a digital world, can arise out of the present political turbulence.
