Great Article. My favourite paragraph is

America, the idea of America, is on the brink. And at the cold, dead heart of the suicide mission it has set itself on, is Facebook. Facebook and America are now indivisible. Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, these are now the bloodstream of American life and politics. A bloodstream that is sick.

We are living in a different world now. So much is happening behind the scenes. Digital information IS power, it is the ultimate power. The terrifying reality is that even our constitution cannot be relied upon here to fully protect us as it was never designed with these prospects in mind. We need to really tackle these issues from a constitional perspective. I don't see the level of thought and proactive stance being taken to address these very real, complex issues at current day. I see nothing happening. Since we cannot resurrect the Founding Fathers, who is to write the new governing principles? (This is mainly said in jest, but also to evoke the idea of the full level of brain power and commitment of thought and planning needed to account for all of the implications of tech in modern life). Even if we could resurrect them, how do would they do it? Is it even possible to sufficiently protect basic citizens' rights given the ever developing capabilities of technologies? And even if we write protection into our OWN governing documents what about international technology development? How do we counteract the possibe effects and intrusions from THAT? It's unprecedented and will be followed by more and more unprecedented development. How do we now proceed?

I think people underestimate how much backlash was because we had an African American president. Hillary didn't energize the black vote as much as Trump energized the white Tea party movement. On election night Van Jones called it a Whitelash. Exactly.