Episode 2: Chaos engineers
« Chaos engineers » is an essay written by Giuliano da Empoli, published in 2019, which analyzes the emergence and influence of modern political strategists in the rise of populism in the digital age.
To oversimplify, he describes how, thanks to Internet forums and other social networks, along with today's digital processing of the data they generate, we can establish a populist “political program” that tells “the people” (at least those in the forums in the first instance) what they want to hear. The advantage of this is that you can adjust the program as the audience evolves, since you have their feedback in real time. Sounds familiar? No? It should...
Then all you need to do is find a charismatic and/or likeable front man with whom you can identify to personify the program and gradually bring it to power. This is also done by sowing chaos (over ideas), thus destabilizing the country's democratic institutions. It's also a way of targeting those who are undecided about their vote and about voting at all. Because, as we know in our polarized societies, that's where the potential reserves of votes lie.
Does it sound far-fetched to you?
Yet this is exactly what the pioneer, the inventor of this method, the true strategist of the 5-Star Movement (Italy), has achieved, Gianroberto Casaleggiois an entrepreneur (he founded Casaleggio Associati), digital marketing expert and former Olivetti employee. This guy has an intuition: the Internet can revolutionize politics. Coming from a marketing background, he thinks in terms of products and consumers, and transposes this to programs and voters. He recruits Beppe Grillo, a loud-mouthed comedian who was very popular on stage in Italy at the time, to become the headliner of his movement. He then remained in the shadows, while Grillo personified the 5-Star Movement.
The method?
In early 2005, Casaleggio opened a blog (beppegrillo.it) with, of course, a forum. From the outside, it's Grillo's blog, which, by his own admission, doesn't really understand any of this and would be unable to run one. Every day, Casaleggio Associati employees select a dozen or so “interesting” comments and pass them on to the boss, who uses them as inspiration for his daily post. The topics always revolve around resentment of establishment politicians and their corruption (though there's plenty of that to go around, particularly in Berlusconitalia), big business neglecting small shareholders, taxes, precarious working conditions and so on - all subjects of interest and concern to the blog's readers. You can be sure of that, since you take their comments on the blog's forum as a starting point. The blog always comes up with simplistic solutions, supposedly within reach, explaining that all we have to do is get rid of all these corrupt incompetents and everything will magically fall into place. Sound familiar? No? Well, it should...
Soon, some of the site's followers showed a desire to get organized, so Casaleggio chose MeetUp to organize discussions and meetings, both virtual and real. Numerous Grillo support groups were then born, and this flexible, evolving structure of the Movement was to accelerate all established parties. Two years after its launch, beppegrillo.it celebrates its millionth comment and the existence of several hundred MeetUp groups.
At the same time, and independently of 5 Stars, a book was published, "La Casta", detailing the privileges of Italy's political caste. For many, this book became a kind of manifesto. Comments skyrocketed on the blog and, in the spring of 2007, “Grillo” called for a gathering of the “Blog People” on September 8, the date commemorating Italy's surrender in 1943, declaring a “Vaffanculo Day”. On that day, demonstrations mobilizing far more than just the “Blog People” were held all over Italy. From there, the media began to pay attention to a phenomenon that no one had seen coming.
Anthill?
In the next step, after being rebuffed by the left-wing parties they were trying to ally themselves with, the pair saw MeetUp groups spontaneously set up Grillo lists for the 2010 regional elections. Casaleggio is a “control freak”: the creature must not escape his hands. He decided to run the whole thing like an anthill: decentralized and apparently autonomous at the bottom, compartmentalized and adaptable, but entirely at the service of a leader to whom everything flows and whose needs dictate activity. 5 stars is therefore a non-party with non-status (as Grillo puts it), as well as a registered trademark and a blog. The beauty of the Internet is that, seen from below, it's an empowering participatory space, where people can express themselves and take initiatives, whereas, seen from above, it's an instrument of control and manipulation. Better still, you can exclude dissidents or troublemakers with a simple click, whereas in a political party, there are procedures, more or less complex, laid down in the statutes that you have to follow and that are generally cumbersome to modify (votes, quorum, etc.). Here you ban, it takes half a second and whoosh!
All content (images, videos, articles) generated by members must be published on the Blog and nowhere else. Kontrôl !!! And... advertising revenues... Later on, a web-TV and a news website are added to the Blog. 5 stars now has an independent media strike force at its disposal. The principle is always the same: ride the wave of discontent, sticking to what's being reported from the field and stirring up resentment with headlines each more clickbait than the last.
In 2011, Berlusconi was swept away by the scandal of the Bunga Bunga parties and replaced by Mario Monti, who proposed a rigorous austerity program of the “ very exciting ” kind... Meanwhile, the Movement continued to grow, feeding off the decay of the political class in Italy. In 2013, it won 25% of the votes cast and 163 seats in parliament. Still not ringing a bell? No? Then there's nothing I can do for you guys...
But this doesn't prevent Grillo from calling for a march on parliament (“And now? Neither? Still no?”). Simultaneously, members of the Movement are being asked to put to the sword any journalist who dares to express the slightest doubt about 5 Star, with many degrading nicknames and insults galore. Sound familiar? No ? Still doesn't? I'll skip the details, but in this period, everyone at the top of the Movement is realized the importance of digital data. Who controls them, controls 5 Stars. Casaleggio, who has been a step ahead of the other members of the board from the outset, locks everything down, ensuring that the Movement remains in his hands. And guess who comes to Italy to sniff the air and keep a close eye on things? Steve Bannon of course! He's not the only one and, he'll later makes absolutely no secret that he used these methods to help Trump come to power in 2016. The same Bannon who preaches for an alliance of the far-right. Sound familiar in recent weeks? No? Not even a guy who does “Roman salutes” when he gets “excited”?
In the same year, Casaleggio died of illness, but not before handing over the reins to his son Davide, a graduate in business economics and now President for life. Thanks to him, the success story will continue and even grow. Here's how a non-party, conceived as a bottom-up consensus-building machine, based on algorithmic analysis of the data fed into its various sites, a truly empty shell of digital democracy, ended up becoming a major player in Italian political life, even conquering power in 2018. I'm not going to tell you all about it, but I strongly advise you to buy LChaos Engineers, a book packed with details on all the above-mentioned events (5 stars, Brexit, Trump coming to power in 2016, Orban in Hungary), you won't regret the few euros/dollars spent.
So who's next?
This is how a digital marketing specialist laid the foundation, prototyped in a way, a system that, today, serves all the populist parties of the US, in Europe, South America and surely beyond, in their conquest of minds and power. We find the ingredients already seen in the Previous post on Atlas: All these people rub shoulders, pool their skills and feedback and apply what works, selling their voters a program that best suits their aspirations, emotions and current reactions. They are then led to vote for the clown of their choice, against their own interests. But beware, now there's also a “ ready-to-use ” program behind it (cf. Project 2025). These people only see their electorate as a stepping stone to power and the personal profit that comes with it. Look for sponsors, investors, financial backers, in short, look for where the money comes from...
If you follow French politics a little, you've probably noticed the analogies, identified characters who play the same roles or act in the same way. So, yes, it's only a matter of time before it happens.
Next time we'll change our lenses again and talk about “Heilon Musk” and other “toxic” billionaires.
Wesh Bro!
P.S. Since Giuliano Da Empoli's book was written, Beppe Grillo has been “sidelined” from the Movement, probably because at the top of 5 Star it is considered that the “clown” has become cumbersome and useless. If I were Musk, or even Donald, I'd be a bit wary.
