He mentions Islam twice (he circles back around to it), so it is an important part of the article. Besides, what is militant Islam but the most effective harnessing of technology to undermine elites there is? To ignore that is to ignore a very practical example of this at play.
Militant Islam is very useful to elites. The U.S. particularly constantly screws around in the Middle East supporting groups that later become terrorist targets of ours. The biggest offenders have the U.S. governments' hands all over them before they became that. The U.S. protects Saudi Arabia and gives military aid despite them harboring top promoters of terrorism. The media and U.S. government here constantly warn people about terrorism with the defense contractors making billions from that and powermongers getting all kinds of laws such as Patriot Act passed when people were afraid. They also like doing this with threats from drug dealers, kidnappers, and pedophiles. There's even a meme for it they do it so much on Internet side:
