Know your Narratives

I have to confess that, when I talk about narratives in the press, the term is often inconsistent, ambiguous and inchoate. Along with conventional narrative elements, I might be talking about shared beliefs, attitudes, and all sorts of related concepts. With that caveat out of the way, here are what I consider the standard narratives that have shaped the political discourse over the past few years.

The end of Donald Trump.

The establishment press found Donald Trump endlessly unnerving, not so much for his racism, corruption, and fascist tendencies (they could be surprisingly cool with those), but because he put the lie to arguably the most cherished of all late 20th and early 21st century political narratives, the fundamental symmetry between the left and the right. You cannot both-sides Trump, at least not without making an ass of yourself. Plus, there was something undeniably scary about the cult of personality that had formed around the man.

Given all that, you can understand why after Biden won the election, the press embraced the idea that being labeled a loser would cause Trump's followers to abandon him. This narrative was questionable from the very beginning (and even before that. Check out our comments from 2019), but it was so enormously appealing that it continued to drive political commentary until as recently as the beginning of this year.

The narrative peaked around the middle of 2022 fueled by a self reinforcing cluster of analyses and articles like "Hear Me Out: Trump Won’t Run Again" by Slate's Jeremy Stahl with each writer credulously repeating the dubious arguments of all the others. As journalism it was an embarrassment, but for social scientists looking at herd mentality, it was a wonderful case study.

The rise of DeSantis.

A direct byproduct of the end of Trump narrative. Starting as early as 2021 and reaching near universal acceptance among the establishment press by the middle of 2022, almost every major news organization was heralding Ron DeSantis as an all but unstoppable political force in the upcoming presidential election. The man's actual history (Florida backbencher who attached himself like a remora to Donald Trump and managed to sneak into the governor's mansion just as the state was turning blood red) and his political talents (embarrassingly subpar for the governor of a big state) were ignored by all but a few smart and independent observers such as Josh Marshall and Michael Hiltzick. The peak of DeSantis mania and the Trump is doomed narratives was probably a comically bad but extremely influential analysis from the New York Times (you can see our real-time critique here).

Dobbs won't matter.

Almost immediately after the decision came down, a number of establishment press institutions such as the New York Times and even more notably Politico came out with various articles, opinion pieces, and analyses arguing that the overturning of Roe V Wade would have little impact on the upcoming elections in 2022 and 2024. We can probably describe the appeal of this one both to the desire of these institutions to appear sober and above it all, and their reluctance to anger conservatives with bad news. Needless to say, this narrative has not fared well against reality. The result has been near continual strategic retreats, each of which can be boiled down to "sure, abortion was a big deal in this last election, and here's why it won't matter next time."

This narrative has been an especially interesting example for a number of reasons. First, for its longevity. While all three we've mentioned so far started about the same time, the first two are long dead. This one, however, remains not only alive but very much kicking. The New York Times in particular has gone to extraordinary lengths to defend it, up to and including selectively editing JD Vance quotes to give the impression that he was moderating his position.

Another interesting aspect has been the way that the actual story has evolved while the standard narrative has not. Almost immediately after states started passing draconian laws, the actual story started changing from one about abortion to one about reproductive rights and women's rights. Overturning Dobbs had sweeping implications. Any discussion of its political impact now has as much to do with prenatal care, in vitro fertilization, and contraception, as it does with what we normally think of when we hear the word abortion. The narrative, however, is still mostly stuck.

Much of the conventional wisdom around the upcoming election is based on the assumption that Dobbs will play a smaller role than it did in 2022 and in the various special elections where it made its presence known. While this might be true, there is also considerable evidence arguing the exact opposite. IVF was not an issue two years ago. The fetal personhood movement is far more vocal now. Horror stories about miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies have continued to accumulate. Red states have continued to pass more extreme anti-abortion laws, while numerous states will have ballot measures countering them. A recording has recently emerged of the Republican vice presidential candidate suggesting national intervention to prevent women from traveling to other states to have abortions. Trump continues to brag at every possible venue about getting Roe overturned. Finally, having a woman at the top of the ticket pushes the issue to the forefront.

Nonetheless, NYT luminaries (David Leonhardt being perhaps the most recent example) continue to fall on their swords in defense of the paper's "nothing to see here" position.

Hapless Kamala.

This is the narrative on this list that almost had the greatest impact. I say "almost" because, at the moment, we appear to have a more unified and energized Democratic Party than we've had in the past decade, possibly much longer than that. The extent to which the party has come together in terms of support, enthusiasm, and money is remarkable, even historic, but it was far from obvious that this was how things would play out.

Perhaps the biggest fear of Democrats who were concerned about Biden stepping down was that it would trigger a feeding frenzy where everyone with an overdeveloped sense of ambition with throw their hats in the ring and every special interest group would start vying to be kingmaker. This fear was heightened by the constant lobbying of the New York Times, Nate Silver, etc. to make the process as disruptive as possible. Their argument for repeating what looked a hell of a lot like another 1972 was that Harris was such a historically bad candidate that she absolutely had to go. (You can find an example of Silver trying unsuccessfully to shore up the official version here.)

As with the other narratives on this list, this one depended more on playing to the biases and desires of elite journalists than it did on any evidence. For a press corps raised on the idea of liberal bias and easily intimidated/manipulated by conservatives, going after a Democratic vice president is the safest of safe moves and, if you truly internalized that definition of bias, it even feels like you're doing the right thing. Add to that the same misogyny that these people directed at Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren with an additional dollop of racism for good measure. Anti-Kamala narratives were always going to be an easy sell.

What about the evidence? While Harris's history may not suggest a political talent on the level of Reagan/Clinton/Obama, it is even less consistent with the story the New York Times and company have been telling us. [Emphasis added]

Ross Douthat: It’s a mistake to go all in on Harris, obviously, because she’s still the exceptionally weak candidate whose weaknesses made President Biden so loath to quit the field for her. [Anyone who thinks Ross Douthat has special insights into these decision making processes please raise your hand and slap yourself with it. -- MP] Potential rivals like Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan are throwing away an unusual opportunity because they imagine some future opening for themselves — in 2028 and beyond — that may never materialize. And the party clearly has an interest in having a better-situated nominee: A swing-state governor who isn’t tied directly to an unpopular administration would be a much, much better choice for a high-stakes but still winnable race than a liberal Californian machine politician with zero track record of winning over moderate to conservative voters.

Let's look at the record. In California Harris ran three races. In the first two she was an underdog. In the third she dominated both the primary and the general election. In the historically competitive 2020 race facing almost 30 opponents, she seriously outperformed a number of candidates with better name recognition and more money. It was a campaign with notable missteps and she never really presented a serious threat to the three frontrunners, Biden, Sanders, and Warren, but if you're going to call that a "disastrous" campaign, you're going to have to come up with whole new adjectives to describe how the bottom two thirds of the field did.

We can argue over Harris's political talents (though based on recent events, we should be able to put an X through the "voters won't respond to her" argument), but the idea that she was so terrible that we should have passed over the legitimate successor who clearly had the support of Democratic primary voters in the process alienating to of the key pillars of the Democratic base was never based on the facts. It was based on a story that the most influential people in journalism told themselves. Just like the idea that Ron DeSantis was a gifted politician was based on a story those same people told themselves. Just like the idea that abortion would not become a major political factor after Dobbs or that Donald Trump would just go away and leave us alone after 2021 were based on stories these people told themselves.

From a sociological standpoint, the rapid convergence on these narratives and their remarkable persistence is a fascinating topic. From a functioning democracy stand, having the discourse shaped by herd mentality and hubris, overseen by people who are frequently wrong but never in doubt is insane.