Increasingly, the impeccably credentialed experts promised to harness algorithms and artificial intelligence to automatically impose an indisputable vision of “social justice” determined outside of the democratic process. No longer would the backward bigots in Tulsa, Omaha, and Cleveland have a say in our democratic society; instead, expert “stakeholders” in Washington, New York, Boston, and the Bay Area would magnanimously shepherd “our democracy” and protect it from the ignorant masses.
So it was with a disgusted sense of recognition that I devoured journalist Jacob Siegel’s disturbing new book The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control, an immediate contender for book of the year and likely of the decade. A U.S. Army combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, Siegel traces the seemingly inexorable rise of authoritarian managerialism to the emergence of bureaucratized nation-states in the late 19th century, with dreams and theorizing stretching back centuries. Vastly expanding upon an essay Siegel wrote for Tabletmagazine in 2023 that went mega-viral, the narrative details how the march of technology has enabled ideologues and opportunists to manipulate and attempt to herd electorates.