Brexit and Trump
On June 23, 2016, the UK voted 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent to leave the European Union, a margin of about 1.3 million votes. On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump lost the US popular vote by nearly 2.9 million but won the Electoral College 304 to 227, carrying Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin by a combined 77,744 votes. Cambridge Analytica had harvested data from roughly 87 million Facebook profiles to model and target persuadable voters. Both elections were decided by narrow margins, shaped by unprecedented algorithmic targeting, and produced winners whose legitimacy has been contested from day one.
Cambridge Analytica harvested data from 87 million Facebook profiles to model and target voters. The key insight of the era is not that the targeting won the elections — the evidence is mixed — but that the electorate never fully agreed on whether the results were legitimate.
06 · Code & Crowd
Legitimacy is now contested on two fronts at once. Above: populist movements and algorithmic media reshape what 'the people' means. Below: decentralized organizations run on code, voting on-chain, executing automatically, with no sovereign above them. The 20th-century assumption that states are the highest political unit is quietly breaking.
Read the full era →