there are three kinds of great books. there are those that resonate emotionally, usually fiction; books that inform or illuminate complex issues; and those that provoke, producing ideas i can't stop thinking about, even i'm not totally convinced.
the revolt of the public is firmly in the third category. i came into this book skeptical: gurri, after all, is a retired cia analyst and mercatus center affiliate. ideologically, i do not trust him. but as i read on, he lays out an unintuitive but fascinating case for the rise of populism:
1. in the internet age, elites have lost control over information flows
2. democratized information reveals their imperfections and the ruse of expertise
3. newly informed publics deem elites (politics, media, corporates) illegitimate
4. empowered by the same digital tools, they respond with nihilism
5. we are now embroiled in cycles of negation, but no legitimate alternative
gurri's framework makes clear sense of the relationship between the affordances of digital networks and the "crisis of authority." it's a hypothesis supported by myriad historical and modern examples (this is where the cia background pays off), and despite being information-dense, it's made engaging by gurri's captivating (and often dramatic) rhetoric.
but my main beef with the book is his (unsurprising) failure to address structural oppression and material drivers of change. for example, he characterizes revolt as a misalignment between the expectations and capabilities of government, and suggests we all just get more realistic about what DC can do. but this critique conflates two kinds of policy failures: first, sweeping government programs (e.g. obama's stimulus bill) that produce mixed results; and second, clear democratic abuses like police brutality and voter suppression. by making the totally reasonable claim that the world is complex, gurri absolves bad decisions as mere "oopsies," and plays into the nihilism of not asking for reform at all.
still, i highly recommend this book to everyone with a mild interest in media, politics, or movements. i'd probably accompany it with other analyses of democracy and its discontents: e.g. twitter and tear gas; the democratic paradox; women, race, and class; so many more i haven't yet read. the revolt of the public presents one vivid part of the picture - just not a complete one.
(nov 7, 2020)
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