Doing Politics in the Attention Economy–Part One

When Charlie Warzel interviewed me for his New York Times column, one question he asked was what can be done by Democrats to reconnect with Trump supporters (my paraphrase, perhaps somewhat off).

I had pointed out than in the competition for attention many of MAGA supporters may feel they have gotten the short end of the stick. For instance, because the are mostly not college graduates, they find themselves and their experiences ignored, often, by managers, regulators, and other government officials who have graduated or have advanced degrees. My suggestion was that we have to find ways to pay them real attention, partly by accepting the reality of their experiences.

On reflection, I now see one crucial attitude for any political person seeking others’ attention is to honor their experiences of you and your statements. That is a minimal way to pay them some real attention.

What you say cannot sound like any sort of lie, bullshit, fakery, just reading some line, or any kind of canned, rehearsed or oft-repeated words. You must make certain to be as honest, sincere, genuine, true to your own perceptions of the moment and to your own authentic experiences as you possibly can be. Right then. If you are bringing up something that happened to you in the past, however important to what matters to you now, you can’t keep using the same story. You have to keep going back to the well of memory, and pulling up your present tense most genuine take on it.

If you are an expert—or repeating the conclusions of acknowledged experts—you can’t just hold forth with the “facts.” You must find ways somehow to explain how you came to believe the facts, what they mean to you and why they should be important to your audience. And you must find ways somehow to connect with how your audience has come to understand the world.

All that is most difficult.

And it runs counter to a tremendous amount of actual practice on the left as well as the right. Political consultants, mentors, fund raisers, and myriad other advisers often teach or do much the opposite. Politicians are supposed to sound “down to earth,” to tell relatable stories, to use folksy language, to draw people in with slogans, or to rely on oversimplified headlines. It’s easy to come up with a winning Twitter one-liner that seems to make opponents look deservedly stupid or wicked. But if it isn’t authentic in a deep way, it might work in the short term but backfire enormously later on.

One example I got very familiar with during the 2020 election season was the crass way people who I thought of as on my side sent out constant streams of emails that try to draw people in with one-sided claims or utter fakery. On the same day, sometimes in the same hour, the same campaign would bemoan their impending loss and boast about their upcoming victory. They would try draw me in with a phony poll, the real purpose of which, it easily became obvious, was to seek a contribution or just add my name to yet another mailing list. Or they would imply that by sending money I would be ensuring not only that their candidate would win, but that some law or budget item of importance to people like me then would automatically be passed.

I assume that many of the politicians who approved such emails do genuinely want some of what I want. But by stooping to this level of fakery they certainly lose my trust. Anyone not sure whom to follow can only feel even more distrustful. Even when Trump was constantly lying and puffing himself up at virtually everyone else’s expense, from many of his supporters’ standpoints it was only a more extreme version of standard political dishonesty.

I don’t want to imply that just by being as truthful and self-revealing as possible, you can win over everyone who has opted for the biggest liar, but it’s a very necessary beginning to taking those people—and, indeed, everybody— seriously.

(thanks to Karen Weinstein and Sharon Nolting for discussion)