July 13, 2021
How the Revolt of the Public is affecting your policy impact: An interview with Martin Gurri
By Todd Davidson, State Policy Network’s Senior Director of Strategic Development
Perhaps one of the more profound revelations of the pandemic has been the decline of Americans’ trust in public institutions, including a waning trust in government. In his book, The Revolt of the Public, Martin Gurri, a former CIA analyst and a specialist in geopolitics and new media, explains how the 21st century’s tidal wave of technology and access to information has shaped public attitudes toward our institutions and the people in charge of them. It’s a shifting balance of power that continues to shape politics and society today.
Gurri joined SPN’s Divergent Thinking Show to explain how this revolt of the public applies to the policy work that think tanks, community organizations, and advocacy groups are doing at the state and local levels.
Gurri: The revolt of the public is a conflict between information wielded by ordinary people and the elites who manage the great institutions we have inherited from the 20th century. I define an “elite” as anyone who sits in an institution. The 20th century trained the elites to be certain and accredited. Elites speak with the authority of someone who has earned the right to be heard right.
The 20th century was the heyday of the top-down, I-talk-you-listen model of organizing humanity. Somewhere around the turn of the new century this tsunami of digital information swept over the landscape and swept away the legitimacy of this model.
Gurri: The 20th century model of politics was very utopian. You stood up and said, “Well, I can end unemployment and solve inequality.” These very difficult and complex social conditions—like inequality—were addressed as if they were somehow a mathematical equation. The idea was if you brought in a political power and enough science and expertise, you could solve the problem.
So, the political rhetoric has been very utopian. None of us believes in that idea anymore; it died somewhere around the boundary of the 21st century. But for some reason I can’t explain, political rhetoric is still utopian in every democracy that I’m aware of. Candidates still stand up and promise what they know they can’t deliver—what we know they can’t deliver—and yet we won’t let them get elected unless they promise this stuff. So, there’s a dilemma: Today, to get elected, politicians have to promise things that will paralyze them once they get into office, and still they are caught off guard when their failed promises spark anger, revolt, and distrust among the public.
Gurri: Think tanks are certainly on the elite side of the spectrum. They are generally upper educated, work in advocacy, have relationships with policymakers. Yet, think tanks do not have policymaking authority. Even though we are elites, we are somewhere in between the public and authority. Because we sit slightly in between, we have an opportunity to facilitate a healthy dialogue between the public and the elites.
Gurri: There are three virtues that are the necessary for elites. Humility is the chief one, and courage is another. When these massive trends are triggered online and conformism takes over, everyone becomes afraid that they will stand out if they say, “Well that’s not me, I don’t do that.” Courage is necessary to push past that fear. Finally, there is honesty about what you understand the truth to be. In this environment, that’s not easy to discern, but we all come to what we think is the grounding truth in the end. Genuine honesty is not just telling the truth; you must also practice living that truth.
Gurri: I have said before that, in one possible future, every democracy would be like Switzerland: All the real politics of that country happen in the little valley one lives in. In an age of revolt, if you come up with one-size-fits-all policies like the 20th century loved to do, at least half the public will revolt. However, in the United States, where our geography and politics sort of align, you can push policymaking down to the local level and get a lot done.
1. Think tanks can be a bridge between the public and those in authority. They can listen to the public and elevate those voices, leading to the development of solutions that enable policymakers to address the public’s needs.
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2. Humility is an essential virtue for think tanks. Elites are often tempted to make exaggerated claims about the competence and likely impact of their policy ideas. When the elites and their policies fail to measure up to those claims, the public is rightfully angry.
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3. Think tanks can help drive decisions to the local level and ensure they are transparent. One-size-fits-all solutions, concocted by unelected administrators, are bound to fail. These failures, coupled with the public’s lack of control or input, have fueled many of the revolts of the last 20 years. Moving decisions to a local, more transparent level will give the public a more influential voice in the policies affecting their daily lives.
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SPN’s Divergent Thinking Show features conversations with leaders and thinkers on a range of trends and ideas that can foster innovation and more successful strategies in our work as think tanks and advocacy organizations at the state and local levels.
