In the Sunday Times, Phyllis Akalin profiles the extraordinary story of Kacper Surdy, a 20 year-old Durham University student who has unexpectedly become a go-to resource for Washington’s top policymakers, despite never having set foot in America. Here’s an excerpt:
In the past year senators, members of Congress, harried aides and political reporters have all turned to Surdy’s @Ringwiss Twitter/X account to help them through confusing legislative thickets. They use it because the account has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Congress’s arcane procedural rules, which can baffle even veteran politicos.
In the most powerful city on Earth, there is great advantage to be gained by those who are able to manipulate the complex rules of Capitol Hill. Yet as the account rose to prominence, Ringwiss’s true identity remained a mystery, its profile picture an image of Homer Simpson eating a doughnut.
Then, last weekend, it emerged that this guru was not a professor of politics, nor a fiendishly clever AI, but an economics student from Peterborough. An article on the Politico website revealed that Surdy was the brain behind Ringwiss.
Washington was stunned. “I don’t believe what I just read. I must still be asleep and dreaming,” said Eric Columbus, a congressional lawyer for Nancy Pelosi and counsel to President Biden on the Senate judiciary committee. …
Since being unmasked Surdy has been approached by political science professors from American universities, offering support in applying for master’s and PhDs, and his follower count has quadrupled to nearly 16,000. “I thought it would be quite funny to reveal who I am – and it was,” he says. “Since the article was published, I’ve had a few members of Congress follow me. It’s nice that they are taking an interest in these things – finally.” …
Surdy’s fascination with U.S. politics was sparked by the 2020 election. But while most of us were transfixed by Donald Trump’s verbal pyrotechnics, it was the procedural rules that got him hooked. “I just got so interested in all the technical stuff, I found it so fascinating,” he says. “I’ve never looked back since.”
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