David Roberts - narratives all the way down
David Roberts @volts.wtf
May 23, 2025 at 12:43 PM
The political theory behind IRA was roughly as follows: We have lost control of the information landscape and can no longer win rhetorical or purely political battles; however, if we make substantive policy progress that directly touches voters' lives, they will notice and reward us.
In other words, changes on the ground, changes to the material reality of voter lives, would cut through the information haze, overcome the information asymmetry.
That was the theory. I heard people involved say it explicitly, more than once.
It failed.
What many of us warned, & what is unavoidably clear now, is that there is no privileged sphere of "real life" that is sheltered, separate from the information environment. It's narratives all the way down -- even to the point that they shape how people experience their own material circumstances.
If a voter has never heard of IRA, doesn't know it exists, then the fact that a factory is getting built in next county, employing them & their families, does not auto-magically lead them to credit Dems. Facts are inert without narratives & worldviews to render them legible.
People render this point glib & shallow when they say, "oh, Dems should have talked about IRA more." I mean yeah, sure, but the problem goes way deeper than that. They could talk about it til they're blue in the face -- their words simply do not reach most Americans.
Dem words reach Dem voters through the hostile filter of MSM political reporters. They reach GOP voters through the hostile filter of Fox et al. They reach disconnected, "apolitical" Americans through the hostile filter of memes & TikToks & bro podcasters. Dems have no direct audience of their own.
For 20 years now, I have been saying, "the right is building a giant, explicitly ideological infotainment behemoth, sucking up viewers, sucking up local papers & stations, sucking up radio, sucking up social media, dominating the info environment. Dems aren't. It's gonna be a problem!"
But I & others saying that were ignored, the growing radicalism of the right was ignored, sanded down, dismissed, Dems continued communicating primarily through MSM reporters who hate them, they continued to imagine that technocratic policy tweaks could shift politics for them, and so here we are.
Again: the theory of IRA was that policy could cut through politics. It was proven wrong. It will be proven wrong the next time they try it too.
They are going to figure out how to win in this info environment or they're going to keep losing.
--- Comments and replies ---
burnafterreading2.bsky.social
@burnafterreading2.bsky.social
What was the alternative?
Form our own propaganda cable network and run a cult of personality candidate who brazenly lies?
Dr. Ellen Ripley 🏳️🌈🇺🇦🌊💉FDJT #1619 #DC51
@trumpistheenemy.bsky.social
George Lakoff has been saying that to Dem leadership for 40 years.
BFR
@bfr74.bsky.social
The idea floating around about having mega donors buy up all the defunct local newspapers and restarting them on shoestring budgets is probably the best single idea I've seen for dealing with this.
Canary in the Coal Mine
@vaelis.bsky.social
Similarly, it seems that a lot of our words reach our politicians through the hostile filter of the press. They react to the press, use the press’ framing of things, and prioritizes what the press thinks is important as opposed to what their own constituents from their own party are telling them.
Matt Johnson
@mattjohnsonhtx.bsky.social
Because—importantly—communication happens through "trust networks." You listen to the people and media who reinforce your self-perceived identity and you have learned to trust. Many people (right or wrong) do not see the Democratic party as a part of their trust network, and therefore don't listen.
Tanya Tussing
@tanyatussing.bsky.social
So many counties with news deserts -- really reduces the number of informed voters
"The number of local news deserts expanded in the U.S. this year with 127 newspapers shuttering, leaving nearly 55 million Americans with limited to no access to local news, according to the Medill State of Local News Report 2024 released today."
www.medill.northwestern.edu
Ben Feddersen
@snoozebuttonben.bsky.social
IRA built a new battery factory in Kokomo, Indiana. My mom's friends who live their just complain about the traffic from all the construction work.
The Last Essential White Guy
@far-far-away.bsky.social
This is one of the core reasons "thermostatic swings" still hugely favor the GOP - their wins are bigger and lead to more change than "blue" swings back. GOP ecosphere has had their voters on "war footing" since Obama's first term. They are told that even if a GOP elected screwed up, voting for a Dem means far worse things will occur to them personally (Woke will come for you & your job, the schools will turn your kids trans, brown people will be free to crime, etc.) It also means they are fine to break the riules when they have power b/c desperate times, etc. Meanwhile D voters and low info swing voters still live in a 1990's media/political environment, where GOP is still shown by media to be normal, so it's OK to vote for them if you are upset with the D's for some reason. Plus, dominance of GOP media infrastructure means the background noise ALWAYS favors their narrative. So Dem candidates are always chasing on "issues", trying to position themselves around false Fox News narratives because polling alleges people care about things, yet those "issues" are just that days cudgel against Dems.
Lissa Harris🐀
@lissaharris.bsky.social
I am deep in my Cassandra feelings today
I ran a local rural news outlet I founded from 2010 to 2017. we could not make the $ work
ten years ago I was howling about how we desperately need to talk about audience-cultivation and distro problems in journalism
it’s hard not to turn into a crank
Ken
@tcbullfrog.bsky.social
I think this is maybe a bit more nuanced than that? People experience real life but it doesn't translate to their worldview/voting behavior?
I'm thinking specifically of how in 2023-ish people reported that they were doing well economically but they thought the economy was bad overall
roterote
@roterote.bsky.social
Belief is upstream from reality.
Marcello Graziano 🇺🇦
@marcellograz.bsky.social
A theory that ….who tf thought of it?!? Like: heloooooo pr, Bernays….🤦♂️
skabomb.bsky.social
@skabomb.bsky.social
During the pandemic my parents had an elderly neighbor. One day he had a visitor who had COVID and she knew and chose not to mask.
The Neighbor died.
2 months later I talked to my mom and she was complaining about masking, "I don't know anyone who died, it's just not dangerous"
Reality lost.
Curious Witness
@curiouswitness.bsky.social
What the right wing has built with Fox News, Twitter and the podcasting space is far too psychologically powerful to overcome with incremental improvement to voters' material reality. The propaganda wattage has literally made tens of millions care more about social grievances than material reality.
rst.bsky.social
@rst.bsky.social
Not clear how that was supposed to happen when one of the motifs of the news in the past two decades has been Republican legislators being increasingly quick to take victory tours of local projects funded by bills that they voted against.
James E. Graham
@jamesegraham.bsky.social
Couple of things:
- This might’ve worked better if the red tape this country hadn’t delayed so much of it. And 2. The options weren’t mutually exclusive! They should’ve been touting the heck out of their wins as well.
Crumbs the Cat
@crumbsthecat.bsky.social
Point 2 misses the point. Touting wins without having a comprehensive information infrastructure to propagate those messages and get them into voters’ algorithmically-curated info streams is like shouting down an empty well.
Brad Bradshaw
@bradbradshaw.bsky.social
Well said David. I wonder that Biden was too imbued with his senatorial history, wherein senators never have to boast or even draw claim on their accomplishments. Oh yes, there are elections. Historically, senators never had to really run around with a bull horn.
Biden should have been out and about, putting a public face on the administration's actions and accomplishments. Apparently public speeches have become less and less about facts and more about beliefs.
US political rhetoric: Analysis of 8 million speeches shows increased reliance on personal beliefs over facts. Discussion of "alternative facts" has gained sad notoriety in US politics. Yet the question has been around much longer: How do people conduct political debates—is the focus more on facts or personal ...
Midatlantica
@midatlantica.bsky.social
This failure hit me hard. It was like Obamacare in miniature. The Right attacked it for going too far, the Left abandoned it for not going far enough, and most Americans couldn't care less, this despite being the most substantial legislation on climate change certainly this century.
Someone wrote that one of the big problems facing America is that we--right, left, independent--stopped looking to politics to deliver change. It's only sport and tribal identity. Competent government doesn't move the needle because no one is grading government by what it achieves.
Ken
@tcbullfrog.bsky.social
Some of the left's problems with it was residual anger from Manchin and Sinema kneecapping the original legislation, But it was still a win for lefty goals imo
Stephen Robinson
@playtyperguy.com
How did the IRA materially improve people's lives in the near term? A major challenge for Democrats is that it takes time for some of their better initiative to impact people.
Ken
@tcbullfrog.bsky.social
It definitely did do some things--prescription drug prices, for example--but it's also true that the biggest stuff was scheduled to take time
Rich Calhoun
@richcalhoun.bsky.social
Large scale industrial policy was a weird way to materially impact everyday voters. CO Dems passed big rebates on electric lawn equipment and e-bikes, their policies are wildly popular.
Plenty of us made this point to elected Dems and pundits but very few listened.
saudades
@saudades.bsky.social
well if the dems had actually taken credit for it and signed their names to it and not just run right on the crime panics of 2022-2024 it just might have
daplander.bsky.social
@daplander.bsky.social
he addresses that further in the thread
Brother Manns From The 5th Floor
@kmanns.bsky.social
Ehh…I’ve heard it repeated multiple times about how transformative the IRA was, and how it touched people.
This isn’t a policy convo, in the way that smart folks think. Giving me money or a job would touch my life. Did the IRA do any of those thing with any type of speed?
Brother Manns From The 5th Floor
@kmanns.bsky.social
I’ll put it this way- if Biden would have said we’re hiring 500,000 workers to build these projects immediately, he wouldn’t have lost the election. The rhetoric of “investment, it’ll pay dividends over time” isn’t going to help people struggling today
Rod Green
@thetheredundant.bsky.social
This is a good point. Unless voters can point to tangible ways that government has positively helped their lives, a successful legislative record like Biden’s doesn’t help all that much. It’s cool that we’re rebuilding roads and bridges, but if people still can afford to live then….🤷🏾♂️
King Blackwhale
@kingblackwhale.bsky.social
It literally did those things though. It wasn’t “dividends over time,” unemployment hit a generational low, lower incomes rose the fastest, the income gap began to close.
It did the specific things you wanted on the timeline you wanted, but people didn’t recognize it or attribute it to Biden.
Cray Craig
@craycraig.bsky.social
Thank you! It was immediate. My best friends business boomed as soon as the infrastructure bill was passed and he got more contracts installing broadband and fiber in rural areas. Thanks to Biden.
But idiots on this app said otherwise.
Falstaff P. Flagler
@richkoski.bsky.social
Do you think Joe Rogan or Fox news or OANN would have repeated that Biden speech? They would not.
Marduk Kurios
@mardukkur.bsky.social
Yes it did. Unemployment reached near all time historic lows which translated into large real dollar wage gains for lower income earners.
bubba
@jortscity.bsky.social
We need to Pivot to Wiki
Florida Garbage
@floridagarbage.bsky.social
Had to read several comments to learn this was not, in fact, about the Irish Republican Army
Kathleen
@kathleencarson.bsky.social
Likewise, even though I am familiar with both the Inflation Reduction Act (I always hated the name) and Roberts' work.
narvey.bsky.social
@narvey.bsky.social
He’s talking about Individual Retirement Accounts, guys.
Florida Garbage
@floridagarbage.bsky.social
He’s talking about the NPR radio personality, but he’s yelling for some reason
Blue Meme
@bluememe.bsky.social
When you lay it out that explicitly, it is even more self-evidently stupid than if the reasoning is obscured.
Human(ambiguous)
@b9n10nt.bsky.social
that means “spend $ on real journalism” NOT “spend $ on dem messaging” (unless that Dem messaging is going to be materialist and reality-based”
every one is gonna wanna be savvy and post-material but thst way lies (continued) ruin. W/o econ collapse, the propaganda game will always be status-quo biased
Alex Roy
@alexroy144.bsky.social
The Democrats have allowed the Republicans to seize NARRATIVE COMMAND.
More on Narrative Command, which is applicable far beyond the startups
I wrote about here, and must be applied to politics by any serious party:
Why Your Startup Needs Narrative Command: The startup success factor no one talks about
alexroy.substack.com
Tony Holland
@tjholland.com
This is a good thread. My maga family live in a completely different reality where they experience things through a different lens. My sister would never get Obamacare but loved the affordable care act.
Rachit Dubey
@rachitdubey.bsky.social
While I agree with everything, but honestly, I think all that was needed was a media-savvy president who would have gotten this message across consistently. Heck, even 2-3 unscripted press conferences/interviews might have helped... don't recall Biden doing airwaves about IRA at all..
joshuatanzer.bsky.social
@joshuatanzer.bsky.social
And the result was, in general people didn't know about the legislation, and those who knew about the legislation didn't know who had passed it.