[vzcx]

Well this is interesting: my perspective is that we are actually already living in the age of the bureau and the technocrat, with only some vestigial democratic traditions, and we have been since 20th century wars. Burnham (who is well worth reading, in my opinion) called this the "managerial system". Of course, it still calls itself "democracy" despite not really being democratic at all. In fact, whenever you hear the word "democracy" -- a word which tends to have positive valence in society -- in the official press, you can substitute "managerial system" for a more neutral term without loss of meaning.

That age might be coming to an end, but it's less about some vague general mood of the 2020s and mostly due to proliferated networked communications. This allows people to find their frens exchange ideas and coordinate actions. Oh and everyone starts to see how transparently duplicitous the official lines are.

We perceive all this as "populism." From Arab Springs to meme stocks to Donald Trump, the phenomena are clearly a form of network dynamics. Is it bad? Is it good? Well... it's certainly disruptive, and is probably both good and bad in different cases and at different times. Which are which depends on your point of view.

But disruption of any kind is certainly bad for the managers, so the natural reaction is precisely what you suggest, effectively, sinification: tighter control ("moderation") of online communications, suppression of opposition parties. Policy drafted by career mandarins. The CCP has done alright, so I suppose if (big if) they can execute it well it might buy them some more time.

But unless you are a party insider, I'm not sure why you would throw your lot in with them.