The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium

MARTINGURRI

THE PUBLIC OF

AND THE CRISIS OF AUTHORITY IN THE NEW MILLENNIUN

S

Stripe Press

THE
REVOLT
OF
THE
PUBLIC

THE REVOLT OF THE PUBLIC AND THE CRISIS OF AUTHORITY IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM

Martin Gurri is a geopolitical analyst and student of new media and information effects. He spent many years working in the corner of CIA dedicated to the analysis of open media. After leaving government, Gurri focused his research on the motive forces powering the transformation and has churned out countless articles, studies, and blog posts on the topic including co-authoring Our Visual Persuasion Gap (Parameters, Spring 2010). His blog, The Fifth Wave, pursues the themes first elaborated in The Revolt of the Public.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MARTIN GURRI SAW IT COMING

I read the first edition of The Revolt of the Public in early January of 2016, after Virginia Postrel cited it in her column. ^† Since then, it has been the book that I recommend whenever I am in a conversation that turns to the Trump phenomenon or the disturbing state of politics in general.

Because Martin Gurri saw it coming. When, without fanfare, he self-published the first edition as an e-book in June of 2014, he did not specifically name Donald Trump, or Brexit, or the oddball political figures and new fringe parties that have surged all over Europe. But he saw how the internet in general and social media in particular were transforming the political landscape.

THE RATHER-GATE EXAMPLE

The first edition told a story of elites losing their ability to control the narrative and protect their reputations. I like to illustrate by using an example that he did not include—an incident known as Rather-gate.

FOREWORD BY ARNOLD KLING

† “Democracy’s Destabilizer: TMI,” Bloomberg View, December 28, 2015.

In 2004, venerable newsman Dan Rather delivered a story on CBS’s 60 Minutes that purported to show that George W. Bush had used political connections to evade real military service in the 1960s. But, a participant in the far-right internet discussion group Free Republic, writing under the pseudonym “Buckhead,” claimed that one of the documents used by CBS was fraudulent. He pointed out that the document used a proportionally-spaced font that was typically not available when the memorandum was supposedly written. Instead, it was likely typed on a computer using word processing software from Microsoft that only became available decades afterward. His analysis quickly spread, serving to discredit the CBS story and Dan Rather as a reporter.

Before the internet, ordinary individuals would not have had access to sufficient information to second-guess an investigation conducted by a major news organization. Nor would someone lacking any sort of formal credentials have been able to disseminate his findings as widely and rapidly as they were disseminated in the Rather-gate scandal. The World Wide Web gave a single anonymous individual the ability to humiliate a powerful media conglomerate and one of its most famous reporters.

In the 1960s, the US government was able to hide important information about its involvement in the failed attempt to depose Fidel Castro (the “Bay of Pigs Invasion” of 1961) and about the difficulties it was facing in Vietnam. Today, a similar embarrassment likely would be exposed via YouTube or WikiLeaks. The public has access to information that it did not have fifty years ago, about matters ranging from police shootings to hurricane relief efforts to lurid details of celebrities’ sexual misconduct.

With his eyes on this altered media space, Martin Gurri saw what was coming. He saw that the elites would be increasingly despised, as more of their mistakes and imperfections became exposed. He saw that the elites would respond to the public with defensiveness and contempt, but that this would only make the public more hostile and defiant toward authority. He saw that the public’s newfound power does not come with any worked-out program or plan, and as a result it poses the threat of nihilism. If the existing order is only torn down, not replaced, the outcome could be chaos and strife.

FOREWORD

With his eyes on this altered media space, Martin Gurri saw what was coming. He saw that the elites would be increasingly despised, as more of their mistakes and imperfections became exposed. He saw that the elites would respond to the public with defensiveness and contempt, but that this would only make the public more hostile and defiant toward authority. He saw that the public’s newfound power does not come with any worked-out program or plan, and as a result it poses the threat of nihilism. If the existing order is only torn down, not replaced, the outcome could be chaos and strife.

AN IMPORTANT NEW CHAPTER

This edition of The Revolt of the Public contains a major new chapter, called “Reconsiderations,” which covers events that have unfolded since the first edition was issued. I recommend reading this chapter twice, once before you begin the rest of the book and once afterward. Writing with greater assurance, passion, eloquence, and urgency, Martin Gurri in “Reconsiderations” spells out the lessons of these events and delivers an important warning about the future.

These days, even though hardly anyone anticipated the way that Donald Trump would turn American politics upside-down, many pundits claim to have the explanation. But Martin Gurri’s analysis is the most credible, because he locates it within a trend affecting much more than just one election in the United States. He is able to link the Trump phenomenon to the collapse of the establishment in many other countries. Merely within the last few years, we have seen the revolt of the public play out in Greece, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Hungary, the Philippines . . . you name it.

And let me repeat the other factor that makes this book’s analysis of the Trump phenomenon particularly credible: Martin Gurri saw it coming.

FOREWORD

DEMOCRATIZED INFORMATION

Reading this book made me realize that democratized information poses a dilemma for modern society. If the public loses patience and respect for government, the result would be disintegration. If elites choose to dig in, they are likely to resort to repression.

To avoid these extreme outcomes, both elites and the public have to change. Elites will have to cede authority and permit more local variation and experimentation. The public will have to be more tolerant. Imperfections and bad outcomes should not be taken as proof of conspiracy or evil intent. We should pay less heed to those who only can pour out condemnation and blame. We should show greater appreciation for those who make constructive attempts to experiment and fix.