Why Kamala Wins

Not a day goes by in the run up to the November election in which I don’t hear how the two parties in America are trying to "shape the narrative”. I hear this word ‘narrative’ used all the time now in many different aspects of life, not just politics. I remember a time, not too long ago, when the word ‘paradigm’ was in almost every speech and article on almost every topic imaginable. Paradigms were understood to change infrequently over long periods of time.¹ The term ‘narrative’ perhaps has more contemporary stickiness because it reflects the more frequent, potentially more disruptive shifts we have seen in the last few years in how we perceive and understand our world.

So what do political parties actually mean when they speak of narrative? And what narratives did we see at play in the Harris-Trump debate?  

In my work as an executive coach, I teach leaders that a narrative is the prevailing conversation the people in their organization are having about “the way it is”. In politics, a narrative is a story, often inherited and usually carefully crafted, for political leaders to use to shape the way people observe and understand their environment and their relationships. No matter whether that story is made up of facts or fiction, truths or myths, when it takes hold it can, for all intents and purposes, shape and impact people’s choices and actions. And our actions create our reality. Therefore, ‘shaping’ the political narrative is, therefore, about ’shaping’ the future we will realize.

This week’s Presidential debate contrasted two narratives: 

1. The INDIVIDUALIST- The United States is a failed nation facing an existential identity crisis. It is under attack from within and from without, being led by Socialist (Marxist) elitists and victimized by a greedy and ungrateful world that conspired and continues to conspire to take advantage of America at every turn. Only one person (“I”) can solve the problems and save this nation from further decline. (I call this the “every man—and under a Trump regime, maybe every woman—for themselves” narrative.) 

2. The COLLECTIVIST - The United States is a strong, proud and successful nation, and an ongoing work-in-progress. It continues to evolve in the context of a rapidly and dramatically changing world. As a nation, it is anchored in community, standing on the precipice of an ever-expanding and prosperous future, and supportive of those less fortunate than itself. Working together, we can solve the problems and create a better future for us all. (I call this the “we’re all in the same boat and care about each other” narrative.)

Let us not forget the obvious. Both narratives are just stories reinforced by an array of underlying beliefs. 

Neither should we dismiss the not-so-obvious. These individualist and collectivist narratives didn’t appear out of nowhere. They are the consequence of thousands, maybe even millions, of conversations people inside and outside the United States have had and are having about “the way America is”. These are not the stories we simply believe or agree with: these are the stories that are so automatic and persistent in our thinking and our conversations that they’ve become a habit. We are living them every day.

Whether you are attending a MAGA rally or a liberal workshop at Harvard, you know which conversation you’ll be hearing. No critical thinking required.

For example, I, for one, was cheering when the pundits jumped on the view that Kamala had badly beaten Trump. I had no problem nodding agreement with every example of where Trump shot himself in the foot or where some expert supported what I already believe. At the same time, I am sure the MAGA advocates were doing the same in their camp.  

If the bottom line in this election is story, which narrative will prevail?

Paradigms change when an anomaly appears that doesn’t fit or cannot be explained by the prevailing worldview. For example, in the early 1600s, Galileo observed that the phases of Venus and the moons orbiting Jupiter didn’t fit the geocentric model, as explained in Ptolemy’s understanding of the universe. That observation led to his heliocentric model of the universe, in which the earth revolves around the Sun (and not the other way around). In 1992, at a ceremony in Rome, Pope John Paul II officially declared that Galileo was right.² 

It could be argued that the MAGA movement/Trump are an anomaly in the context of democracy and civil decorum. This election, we’re looking at a much shorter time frame—not four centuries—between the appearance of this anomaly and the intractability of one of these two narratives of America. 

One of my views is that when paradigms—or narratives—collide, the one that will prevail is the one that can include the other. For example, ‘love’ can include capitalism as a system for allocating resources. But capitalism cannot include love, except as a commodity. Similarly, in the context of today’s political wars, the collectivist paradigm can include (that is, recognize and allow for) the individualist narrative. But the individualist paradigm cannot include the “collective” narrative, except as a concept.  

This is good news for Kamala, for progressives, and, in the long run, for everyone.

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NOTES

¹ The term ‘paradigm’ goes back to American historian and philosopher Thomas Kuhn. In his monograph The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn distinguished periodic historical shifts in scientific thought that don’t add new knowledge so much as they open up an entirely new interpretation that allows for rethinking what we already know and for seeing new possibilities that were previously missing. These ‘paradigm shifts’ are what happens when a new context appears that reveals prior blind spots or opens new possibilities. When the context shifts for a critical mass of the population, it changes the world for everyone. 

Twenty years after Kuhn republished his monograph as a book, his core idea that our collective worldview can and does change from time to time and, when it does, everything else changes, reached bestseller status. However, like most initially intriguing and even powerful new terms, ‘paradigm’ has moved from a distinction that opens inquiries into the nature of something previously taken for granted to a piece of technical jargon, buried by overuse and assumed understanding.  

² Vatican Science Panel Told By Pope: Galileo Was Right". The New York Times. 1 November 1992.  

“Vatican admits Galileo was right”, NewScientist, 7 November 1992. 

PHOTO CREDIT

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

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