Martin Gurri:

There’s a radical dissatisfaction with the social and political status quo across the democratic world. The people in charge are distrusted and despised by the public: They are thought to be in business for themselves and indifferent to the concerns of ordinary people. From government agencies to the scientific establishment, the institutions that buttress modern society have been tainted by the corruption and poor performance of the ruling elites. The public has come to view these institutions as cash cows for the haves—and an oppressive machinery for bleeding the have-nots.

How truly democratic today’s democracies are has become an open question. Negative answers trouble the political life of many nations. Everywhere the traditional parties, creatures of a decaying consensus, are in the grip of disintegration. They are being replaced by sectarian war bands that challenge the very legitimacy of the system. The public has a vague notion of what it is for but knows with terrible clarity what it stands against. A spirit of negation has inspired massive street uprisings in the style of France’s Yellow Vests and Black Lives Matter here at home, as well as the election of unorthodox populists like Donald Trump.

I analyzed the causes of this upheaval in my 2014 book, “The Revolt of the Public.” In brief, I argued that institutional elites have failed to adapt to the vast flows of information of the digital age. They reside at the top of great hierarchies that tower uneasily over a flattened socioeconomic landscape—and they want nothing to change. They crave the eternal preservation of the 20th-century regime, in which they wielded unquestioned authority and had the power to conceal their dirty secrets. In pursuit of this ideal—fondly labeled “our democracy”—they have grown ever more reactionary and antidemocratic over the decades.