They were wrong, in part, because they didn't predict social media. They didn't predict the creation of bots that could tap directly into the limbic systems of the people whose privacy was violated by the likes of Facebook / Meta. They didn't predict the power of the Russian-based Internet Research Agency to create fake personas that would encourage the worst in people by cozying up to them and pretending to be real people just like them .

They didn't know it was possible to process copious amounts of information about people within seconds, and target them personally based on a compilation of all their personal online histories.

Well everything you say is true, this didn't just happen--it was a deliberate manipulation to focus anger at specific scapegoats in order to maintain power.

This is extremely important, because in order to correct such an unnatural imbalance in our political discourse, we need to be very clear about how we got here. It's not that theorists got it wrong--it's that far right power mongers with virtually unlimited "dark money" got it right.