Martin Gurri: Political Chaos Brings Colossal Transformation
Today’s guest is Martin Gurri, a former CIA analyst who is a visiting fellow at the Mercatus Center and a columnist for The Free Press. A decade ago, in the wake of the Arab Spring and various “color” revolutions around the world, Gurri published The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium, which analyzed how social media empowered ordinary people to resist control from above and anticipated the rise of Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Brexit.
Reason‘s Nick Gillespie spoke with Gurri shortly after the 2024 election at The Reason Speakeasy, a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy in an age of intellectual conformity and groupthink. (Go here for information on Reason events.) They talked about why Gurri voted for Trump and why he’s cautiously optimistic about the next four years.
0:00- Introduction
1:13- Why Gurri voted for Trump
4:46- Trump vs. Harris: Chaos vs. Control
8:40- Trump’s first term 11:04- Trump’s new coalition
14:33- Is authoritarianism coming to America?
19:00- Attention, Populism & Wild Hair
20:42- Colossal transformation awaits us
34:05- Creating communities of meaning in the digital age
36:22- The transformations enabled by the printing press
38:41- More chaos is coming 43:11- Lessons from Cuba
48:40- Arab Spring and the spark that overthrows a regime
50:37- Short term pessimistic, long term optimistic
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