Elizabeth Faue

Radical Experience and the Surveillance State

The recent presidential campaign has brought into public debate some of the central political issues of the past century: how democracy and radicalism are defined, how political change originates in and emanates from the marginalized Left, and how the state both constrains and shapes the margins seeking to become mainstream. While the politics of gender and race equality have infiltrated broadcast news and twitter feeds, so too has radicalism—on the left and the right—drawn reporters and crowds. Antiestablishment candidates prosper, as national polls suggest a genuine disenchantment with politics as usual. A socialist garnered significant support in the Democratic Party; white supremacists endorsed the Republican candidate. There is an open and heated debate about who belongs and does not belong in our democracy and who