But the hypothesis I presented in this chapter was not that the public in 2011 had the interest or the capacity to replace current institutions of authority. It had neither. Sectarian to the core, the public would have felt corrupted by the thought of assuming the functions of the Center. The phase change concerned, at the most obvious level, a new capacity to mobilize large numbers of the public and so to command the attention of all political players, from government leaders to the media to ordinary voters. This was a new thing under the sun, and it became possible only in the altered
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