Stability and instability, the sacred and profane, the future and the past. Three stories that matter.
If you want to make change in politics, you need to tell stories. But not every story is the same. These are the three that work, and why you should use them.
If you spend enough time listening to politics, you'll begin to notice patterns. Certain stories seem to repeat - many times with similar outcomes - and become habits of talking about the world.
The most important stories in politics are stories about making a choice. After all, that is what most people who participate in politics are trying to do: get you to make a choice, whether it's between candidates and parties, or in support of policies, or movements.
The most effective choice stories will raise the emotional stakes for listeners, generate urgency, and then present solutions that feel like common sense. There's a reason that they are re-used. Familiar stories are more likely to feel true, and so the more familiar your story feels, the easier it is to make the choice you want your audience to choose. Simplicity, and familiarity are strengths.
There are three stories about choosing that re-emerge over and over again. They all have variations that adapt to their context, and sometimes they overlap, but if a story feels familiar, it's probably because it's appealing to one of these well-worn archetypes. In no particular order:
Stability vs. instability.
Stability is a core human desire. There's a reason most people fall into a regular daily routine: the ability to predict your day builds a foundation for all other aspects of life. Without the ability to reasonably anticipate what will happen next week, it's hard to do things like start a family, run a business, or create community.
And so stories that ask listeners to choose between stability and instability are some of the most frequent stories used by people who want to mobilize the public towards their own goals. It is easy to choose stability.
The classic version of a 'stability vs. instability' story is about physical security. This is the authoritarian appeal used by heads of state, dictators, and strongmen of all kinds and should be pretty familiar: "Stick with me, and you will be safe." This uses the fear of violence and the promise to prevent it, in exchange for abandoning rights or liberties.
But people need many kinds of stability: economic, emotional, climatological, and so on. I think stories about stability can also be used in less authoritarian ways by emphasizing those needs. All authoritarians end up unpredictable wrecks (and some start that way). Revolutions against dictators can thrive on telling a story of wanting stability free from unpredictable disappearances, heavy handed policing, and the inherent irrationality of placing a country in the hands of a single person.
An essential story contributing to the defeat of Donald Trump in 2020, like other similar political figures elsewhere, was that he was simply too unstable and incompetent, and that democratic norms and managerial competence would be a much better alternative. It's not be hard to imagine versions of this in response to dictators that push their countries into dangerous wars, or smaller-time authoritarians who continuously pick culture war fights that exhaust their constituents.
Unpredictable weather patterns is the essential problem of climate change, and the fear of the onrushing climate disruption is a major motivation for people who join the climate movement. While some climate solutions certainly have an authoritarian twinge - hello, solar radiation management - for the most part, a world with climate action will be one that has less centralized power for the few. Ultimately, these stories are flexible.
Sacred vs. profane
The sacred versus the profane story is a story about community. All communities have some kind of boundary, and this story is about and what is allowed inside that boundary.
At the center of any political community is a shared vision of what is important. That vision becomes concrete in the form of agreements, constitutions, and traditions. Those priorities are what define the container of the community - in other words, what they hold sacred. The things that violate those priorities are secular versions of the profane. They are the things that cannot be allowed if the community is to endure.
The most basic, familiar version of this story is about insiders and outsiders. Whenever you see immigrants called invaders, or protestors called outside agitators, or foreigners called a threat to our values, you are seeing a version of this story play out. At its most extreme, this becomes a story about racial purity, with the violence that inevitably follows.
But there are subtler, more liberatory versions of this story as well. Some of what we hold sacred are promises of care, which need to be honored and upheld against profane greed and selfishness. After all, shared protection is the essential purpose of community. When corporate leaders are accused of abandoning their promises to workers or communities, you are seeing a version of the profane and the sacred story.
The sacred versus the profane story shows up in protection of the planet as well. The basic concepts of 'clean' and 'dirty,' 'nature' and 'pollution' are all secularized versions of sacred and profane. Of course, these ideas can be turned in harmful directions - notably anti-immigrant at times - but when held to higher principles the idea of protecting people and planet from pollution is an indispensable concept for anyone who wants to maintain an earth worth living on.
You can see these streams of thought flow together explicitly in campaigns that protect particular sacred places from destruction. "Protect the sacred" was an essential story of the work against the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock, and countless other places as well.
Another version of this story can run counter to the authoritarian politics discussed above. Political communities almost always include shared commitments to certain freedoms. These freedoms are what authoritarians want to destroy when they consolidate power for themselves. Protecting freedoms (or arguing for their expansion) against authoritarians is another variation of the sacred and profane story.
Future vs. past
When asking a community to make a choice, you are inevitably talking to them about the past and the future. Together, we are changing what has happened in the past, by choosing a different future.
One version of a story about the future and the past is about the inevitable future, and how we choose to engage with it. The purest form of this story is British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's famous phrase 'there is no alternative.' The idea of an inevitable, onrushing future can overwhelm objections grounded in values or visions. People may accept outcomes they disagree with if they no longer think the world they want is possible. In this story, the future is used as a weapon against the past.
Of course, not every story about the inevitable future is so distasteful. The idea of the 'arc of history bending towards justice' can be a source of solace in hard times. Positioning bigots as holding on to biases of the past instead of embracing a diverse, welcoming future can be a useful wedge to mobilize people against them.
But there is another version of stories about the future and past that offers a different kind of choice as well. I think of it as the overlapping part of the Venn diagram between a future/past story, and a sacred/profane story. In this story a sacred promise was made, and is at risk of breaking, and can be redeemed by us in the future.
One of the most interesting books I've ever read about politics is Michael Walzer's Exodus and Revolution. In it, he explains how the Exodus story of leaving Egypt, a covenant with god, wandering in the desert, the missteps along the way, and then reaching the promised land, is the foundation of revolutionary storytelling in countries with strong Abrahamic traditions.
Walzer explains how the Exodus story is the choice between progress towards a future world that fulfills our shared promises to each other, and the threat of backsliding away from it into the ways of the past. You can see versions of this same story all over: every discussion about leaders that have lost their way, or stories about the corruption of elites versus the honesty and integrity of revolutionaries.
The story of progress versus backsliding is essentially about the future and the past, but in this case, there is an alternative. The past isn't always bad, or permanently disappearing. Instead, it says some point we were on the right path, and it's important that we continue on it. The listeners can decide where they want to go in this journey, and where they want to end up. The future can be a source of liberation, not just a piece of leverage to batter down objections in the present.
The overlaps, and the caveats
Inevitably, these stories are circles in a Venn diagram. They can blend together, or exist side-by-side in the same moments. Sometimes, they can be deployed against each other.
They are also not superpowers. Telling a story about stability, or the sacred will not inevitably compel your audience to choose the way you want them to. The success of stories depends on how they fit their moment; the timing must be right. Talking about danger in a time of general stability may not resonate, and calling a widely trusted leader a corrupt backslider could easily backfire.
There are also other kinds of storytelling in politics. One of the foundations of community organizing is the one-on-one conversation, where organizers tell a personal story that helps them connect with a potential volunteer, and motivate them to join a project.
But for the big conversations that shape big communities, I think these three are the essential stories to tell. As always, the important thing is to use them ethically, with the goal of making the world more free and more welcoming. That's what we're ultimately here to do.