Nobody trusts experts

Voters no longer want to submit to "empty jackets"

What do Donald Trump's sensational presidential campaign and the equally sensational Brexit results have in common? In both cases, voters vote "wrong" from the point of view of national elites. They do this despite all the warnings of "competent professionals". In both cases, citizens are going against the well-oiled, well-functioning machine of the expertocracy, against the establishment.

There is a group of well-educated people who have Oxford or Harvard behind them. They wear impeccable suits and always give correct grades. They gather for discussions in Davos, and they have a clear understanding of how the average citizen - specifically you - should live. Experts know who you should vote for, where to invest your money, what words not to use for the sake of political correctness, whether you can smoke cigarettes and even what diet to follow. Increasingly, the result of their advice is the growth of wealth inequality, economic instability and alienation.

And now we are witnessing how the world is changing: in 2016, experts suffer a crushing defeat. Nassim Taleb, a well-known financier, controversial and even scandalous author of books on the role of chance in human history, is now discussing this. The Trump campaign, the referendum in the UK are just some of the signs that a request is being made around the world for alternative elites, and most importantly, for the right of people to determine their own future.

All the American media say in unison that supporting Trump is crazy. Long-term members of the Republican Party write alarmist articles in the New York Times: they can no longer support their own candidate. Liberal and conservative pundits worked together to get rid of Trump. But despite this, the businessman's rating continues to grow. Take a closer look - it's an extraordinary sight: everyone who has influence in American society is scolding Trump, but this does not seem to bother him in the least.

The same is happening with Brexit. As with Trump's nomination, no one believed in the victory of supporters of the UK's exit from the EU. Before the vote, pundits made many arguments about why leaving would be an absurd choice for the British. Experts continued to criticize their fellow citizens after the vote. But they simply did not listen: people want to make their own decisions, and Western democratic institutions give them such an opportunity.

We know that the media influence and transform society and politics. Writing made possible ancient empires, printing led to the Reformation, the emergence of modern ideas about human rights and democracy. Over the past ten years, there has been a lot of debate about what changes the Internet promises us. We talked about the role of Twitter in the Arab Spring, about the liberating potential of new media. But only now are we beginning to understand how these changes actually work. Perhaps the biggest thing the Internet has taught people is distrust of their own elites. It's hard to imagine the Trump phenomenon or the "wrong" Brexit vote in the age of TV.

Now in new media, we see experts much closer and more detailed than ever. We see the representatives of the establishment as living people who make mistakes, say stupid things, are funny. Voters in the West are no longer willing to take orders from the empty jackets. This means that we are awaiting a revision of the social contract throughout the world. This process will be burdened with risks: the collapse of old political alliances, the coming to power of populists.