Revolt of the Public: A Reconsideration and George Floyd
By: Evan J. Zimmerman
Tags: Politics, Social Change, George Floyd, Book Review

Revolt of the Public: A Reconsideration and George Floyd

Martin Gurri’s book now looks prophetic. It can teach us about the present crisis

In 2014, Martin Gurri published Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millenium. Gurri, a former CIA analyst, argues that the Internet did more than just enable new voices to be heard. He argued that it fractured any common notion of the public and dissipated authority. It was a brilliant book with exquisite timing. In 2014, most people still thought the Internet was primarily a tool for a certain type of protest: progressive and giving a voice to the unheard. Just a year later everything would change, starting with ISIS and barreling into Brexit and the Trumpocalypse.

It’s now 2020, and six years later we have a mountain of evidence, years of discourse with Gurri, and now a wave of protests following the murder of George Floyd. Gurri is now considered prescient and his thoughts have percolated throughout the ecosystem (supposedly, even Mark Zuckerberg has read it). Lots of people are now writing long-belated reviews, but now is time for something different: a retrospective, and a discussion of how we can move forward to make real change.

Uncertainty, institutions, and control

Revolt of the Public’s key argument is that the Internet has caused the public to revolt against elites, and the key lever of this loss of control is uncertainty. The Internet allows anyone to broadcast their thoughts and facts. This destroys the monopoly that the elites have on information, which means that sometimes they’re drowned out and sometimes, inevitably, they are shown to be wrong. The deluge of information provides some morsel of truth to support any possible position, making any side seem at least somewhat credible to someone. This creates uncertainty in what the truth is, which means that the elites can no longer persuade the masses, losing their only real method of control. Ironically, this uncertainty breeds certainty — certainty, among the public, that the elites are conspiring against them, that their mistakes are in fact calculated deceits, that there is a pattern of self-serving bribery. Gurri says that they’re right and that the ruling class never really trusted a public they think of as animalistic; all that’s changed is that this distrust is now returned in kind.

Revolt of the Public is most interesting in that it accepts the main tenants of Internet evangelists but turns them on their head by arguing that there are unintuitive implications. Techies have long talked about how the Internet “helps you find your tribe.” Revolt says “yes!” and then goes one step further, arguing that this means that there is no longer a single public but groups organized around “vital interests.”

Gurri’s insight is similar to the model of “stochastic terrorism,” first developed by Gordon Woo in 2002, where terrorist organizations put out messages in the hopes of radicalizing lone wolf attackers whom they will never meet or even communicate with. This is a distinctly Internet-driven phenomenon, it’s the method used most notably by Isis, which might be the only terrorist group in history to publish a high-gloss magazine, Dabiq, and put out ads for photographers. But it is also the strategy used by protest movements like Occupy Wall Street. Even some of the largest movements of the past few years, like Black Lives Matter or the Women’s March, aren’t exactly stochastic — they have leadership and 503(c)(3)s that accept donations — but they primarily serve to send out beacons to their supporters, not to push actual policies.

Due to this uncertainty, and the decentralized nature of the Internet, Revolt argues that these new movements are of a new kind. They are leaderless, they arise organically, and their demands are not very specific. Revolt of the Public deftly finds this common thread across many movements, from the indignados of Spain to the Arab Spring in Egypt. One great strength of Revolt of the Public is that Gurri supports these claims not by citing analysts but by quoting the movements in their own words. One weakness: Asian movements are notably absent from Revolt of the Public, partly because Gurri was not at an Asia desk, but I think it is also because Asian movements like the umbrella movement in Hong Kong don’t fully fit his model. They have leaders and specific requests despite being born on the Internet.

The most interesting, and distressing, example in Revolt of the Public is the Israel Summer of 2011. Young Israeli professionals protested throughout the country by setting up tents, focusing mostly on the rising cost of living in major metro areas, including food, healthcare, and rent. The movement was triggered by a single person, Daphni Leef, and their rhetoric reflected a greater desire to throw off the established order than to solve any particular problem. Most notably, Prime Minister Netanyahu established a commission that proposed concrete solutions to the stated problems, but the so-called “tent people” refused to engage and shifted their demands. In Gurri’s words, the tent people “weren’t prepared to declare victory on any terms.”

Shouting into the void

Paradoxically, elites now have more and less control than ever. They can’t stop uprisings, and they’re more destructive than ever, but there are also fewer threats to their actual control since movements are now neutered. Modern decentralized movements grow extremely quickly, which makes them impossible to contain, but in doing so they suck out the air for more organized, operational movements, killing them in the crib. With no leaders and no clear goals, decentralized movements also flame out more quickly, living in the ether of the Internet without much concrete change from elites. Gurri accuses contemporary movements of nihilism, not powerlessness. Yet in Egypt, the military is still in charge.

One inescapable curiosity of social media is that its most popular accounts and tweets are from establishment figures. According to Crowdtangle, the top 10 most popular stories on Facebook are almost always from well-known political entities who made their names outside of the Internet, like Franklin Graham and Ben Shapiro, or pre-existing institutions, like Fox News. Look at the Twitter accounts with the most follows and you’ll see politicians and a parade of celebrities — only one of whom, Justin Bieber, rose through the Internet (specifically, YouTube) and not the Hollywood machine. And those who truly dominate get absorbed by the existing masters instead of replacing them as their YouTube channels get bought, as with YouTube buying Pewdiepie’s production company. “We used to just have three channels” is a meme now, but when the new Walter Cronkites are still in business and are the most shared content creators on platforms allegedly composed primarily of user generated content, the old way isn’t exactly dead.

There is a difference between original content and responsive content. Original content is a video on YouTube; responsive content is the comments. There are two main differences between the media landscape of old and now. The first difference is the dramatic change in the cost and reduction of original content. This is the focus of Gurri and much of the existing discourse on the Internet. It’s true and important, but it’s not the whole story. The second difference is the creation of responsive content. Unlike original content, responsive content was created by the Internet out of whole cloth. And here’s what’s critical: everyone can hear them. That includes the other commenters and the content creators themselves.

There is indeed no more central, authoritative voice, but it is primarily not because it’s cheaper to create a competitor but because the Cronkites of today can hear their listeners talking back. The guy watching football on TV and yelling at the ref, who can’t hear him, is a comedic trope. But football would be different if the refs could hear twenty million fans yelling at them. We’re now living in the world where they can hear everyone, including every fan at home with a beer. Influencers are aware of this, and agitators like Sean McElwee have openly explained that they campaign on Twitter not to convince their fellow citizens but to influence the elite in politics and media who now take their cues from the online world. The elite response is to either be overresponsive or further insulated.

The free flow of information allows the public to see an unvarnished truth, which means a lack of control over claims to perfection; since all progress is messy, the fear is that the public never stops revolting. Yet, the free flow of information is also the cure to the public’s rage. Since imperfections are public, real progress is public too. Because the Internet is decentralized, policymakers can hear from every constituency, not just the ones with lobbyists. So instead of promising the sun, the moon, and the stars, real movements can move forward by promising progress.

The feeling of failure

Gurri goes out of his way, both in the book and in later responsive follow-ups, to argue that no tangible policies by the elite can quell the public, but Gurri seems to talk himself in a circle. Gurri acknowledges that the US government built the highway systems, and that it has been a great achievement, but then says no one believes the government can build them today, and even if it could that wouldn’t quell some subjective notion of discontent. Well, which is it — are the people angry because they don’t care about highways or because they’re crumbling and nothing is being done?

I contend that it’s the latter. We see this time and again in the US. The murder of George Floyd is so angering because, five years after a similar police murder of Eric Garner, nothing has changed. Indeed, Gurri describes the public’s revolt as ephemeral, with the main constant being rage at perceived corruption. For this reason, in the book and subsequent talks, the main remedy Gurri talks about is flattening government to bring it closer to the public. But the most consequential protests over the last few years have actually hewed to consistent themes — in the case of Black Lives Matter, even with the same slogans. If they’re of the Internet, how have they lasted so long? And how have they had such longevity with so little impact?

The problem is that Gurri describes these convulsions as “movements of revolt,” but they’re not movements — just revolts. As an example, take Greta Thunberg. Greta took the world by storm, but really, what was her message? It was mass outrage about climate change, not a set of policies. In 1964, those who were angry about racism attended a Million Man March in support of specific legislation, with leaders who could control the crowds. One of the reasons Congressional leaders were willing to negotiate with a Martin Luther King was that there was an implicit trade: if they gave him what he wanted, they could make the protests go away. Greta’s day of rage was larger, but it was also dramatically less impactful. There are no policies to support. Even policies inspired by her movement, like the Green New Deal, aren’t serious — its proponents say the GND is just there to expand the Overton Window, a declaration of values with no hope of practical impact. There is nothing that Greta offers for which she is willing to trade. It’s not even clear what she can offer since decentralized organizing means a new leader can take her place with new protests tomorrow. Instead, what we get is a primal scream.

Notably, there has been a successful Western movement birthed from the Internet: the global populist movement, or the “reocons.” Gurri’s analysis of Brexit and the Trumpocalypse in the second edition seems to confuse coalition-building with disorder. The global populist rebellion started as an online evolution of the Tea Party and has a mix of beliefs, but it is not incoherent. Go to the National Conservatism Conference and you’ll see a real movement with a distinct ideology, focused on reducing openness in general. That it is chaotic and devoid of facts reflects the low quality of the ideology, not a paucity of guiding principles; the fact that it has institutions doesn’t mean that it isn’t a revolt, just that it has evolved into a movement. Real movements co-opt and dilute by forming coalitions to not only obtain but also exercise power. What is so fascinating about Internet movements like Greta’s is that she has emerged as a recognized leader and could choose to do the same as the reocons by assuming control and evolving the movement to be as effective and developed as the reocons— yet she doesn’t. I’m reminded as well of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which started with 10 vague “demands” that quickly became a much longer list, many of which had nothing to do with the financial crisis.

Perhaps this is why the public keeps revolting. With a lack of a monopoly of information, leaders can rise to prominence purely by tearing down without building, and then they never get the chance to pivot to progress because they can’t control the information stream either so they have to keep bleating to fend off competitors. This means that the problems go unaddressed despite their being raised, causing persistent pain: as John F. Kennedy explained in his 1963 United Nations address, “peace cannot come without work and without progress.”

George Floyd, justice, and the moment

The George Floyd protests, so far, have followed the Revolt playbook. Like most other protests these days, these too are products of the Internet. They began because someone posted a video of his murder on Facebook. It was shared. People, on their own and congregating on the Internet, decided to protest. Those protests were tweeted, it has now spread throughout the United States without anyone ever organizing the successors. To make progress, in the immortal words of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, requires turning a moment into a movement.

There is a deep sense of pain and corruption. Why shouldn’t there be? The murder was captured on video, clear as day. Yet, the official autopsy report laughably concluded that he died of a drug-induced heart attack. It took days of riots for the officer to be arrested and an independent autopsy to state the obvious conclusion that he had died from asphyxiation. And once the officer was even charged, it was for third-degree murder, a charge so light that only five states have it on their books. This isn’t just imperfection or the curse of rising expectations; the George Floyd murder goes against everything Americans have been brought up to believe makes for a just government.

Revolt of the Public is not anti-institution. In fact, it reads like a lament, since Gurri takes the position of the Chicago Bulls’s Jerry Krause: what lasts is groups, not individuals. Compare:

“ Lasting authority resides in institutions rather than in the persons who act and speak on their behalf.” “Players and coaches alone don’t win championships, organizations do.”

Movements have several ingredients. They require actual leaders; the legitimacy to negotiate; specific sets of policies; some set of principles; and of course, critical mass. The various groups in Revolt of the Public affect change, but not progress, since all they have attained is critical mass without any of the other factors. The reason there is so much rage is that the public’s critical mass demands legitimacy, but is not channeled to the means that would operationalize it. That gap is bridged by professionalization, and to retain acceptable authority in an age of spontaneous revolt requires a new kind of professional class that is fast, responsive, composed of people from the revolt, and not filled with layers of bureaucracy.

The question, then, is how to turn decentralized convulsions into real movements. To move forward, we need three things.

First, the public needs leaders. Critical mass converts into movements when there are leaders who can communicate and negotiate specific demands. Modern decentralized movements do choose leaders. José Ortega y Gasset argued that these leaders are naturally “selected.” This is especially true in a world of decentralized movements where leaders must compete with other claimants to the throne. What we need to do, once such people are selected, is support their authority to deal.

Second, the public needs policies. Real, practical changes. Policies are more than just ideas. They are model codes, think tanks, legislation, executive action. They must be backed by evidence that they solve the problems at hand, which are real and material, to give the public confidence and to maximize the chance of impact. This looks more like Campaign Zero than Black Lives Matter. There are real bills being put out now, like Justin Amash’s bill to end qualified immunity, Rand Paul’s anti-chokehold bill, the federal anti-lynching bill, Brian Schatz’s bill ending 1033 sales, and a host of other reform bills. The movement needs to coalesce around these and other actual, tangible items, not just principles.

Third, the public needs to act. A movement requires its leaders to take the levers of power. This both means changing the balance of power in the halls of power, which means replacing at least some officials — As Eric Weinstein observed, “the Boomers redefined jobs as needing exactly as much experience as they had at any given moment” — and using those new members to work with the remaining officials. So, vote, run for office, donate, and build. And, unlike the tent people, be willing and ready to win.

We need a middle

Revolt of the Public ends with this: institutions get legitimacy from stories.

Every great institution is justified by a story. That story connects the institution to higher political ideals and ultimately to the moral order of the world. It persuades ordinary people — you and me — that, if we wish to do the right thing, we should act as the institution requires of us. The story bestows the authorizing magic I have called legitimacy.

Gurri is right, just as he is right when he says: “Politics is nothing like baseball. In the end, the most persuasive story wins, not the highest score.” But a persuasive story isn’t the whole ballgame.

With the institutional story, higher ideals are the beginning, and working with institutions is the ending — but every story needs a middle. The middle is actual, concrete change made visible. The characters of that story are leaders negotiating for actual policies. The narrative is the implementation of those policies. Our stories don’t need us to define a conclusion. What we’re missing is the meaty middle.

The lesson of Revolt of the Public, in its own words, is not that the Internet has made progress impossible. It has not changed the fundamental reality that once there is critical mass, the public can enact change. The question is whether that change is destruction without progress. That is up to whether we choose to build a movement.