J. B. Pritzer, Governor of Illinois, struck the right tone in his recent address in New Hampshire: “Standing for the idea that the government doesn’t have the right to kidnap you without due process is arguably the MOST EFFECTIVE CAMPAIGN SLOGAN IN HISTORY,” “Today, it’s an immigrant with a tattoo. Tomorrow, it’s a citizen whose Facebook post annoys Trump.” Pritzer may be right. I’m glad he is speaking out, AND we need stronger narratives for issues like the economy, immigration, health care, education and climate change as well.
Republicans are selling the narrative that they are saving America from depraved gang members who are stealing our jobs, eating our pets, and raping women. They are hiding behind antisemitism at elite universities as a cover for their anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-research, anti-DEI campaign. They are boldly claiming success, when the facts paint a picture of failure. Narratives are meant to expose the truth not defend cruelty.
Let me provide a little historical perspective on how narratives develop before plunging into our current situation. I recently read two books that shed light on the historical roots of narrative: Open Socrates by Agnes Callard and Miracles and Wonder by Elaine Pagels.
In Open Socrates, Callard discusses the Socratic method and compares his philosophy to Kant, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Ethics. The book describes in depth how Socrates challenged his associates beyond the point of exasperation – pushing them to think harder about whether what they said was what they truly meant. His belief was that thinking more deeply about we know and don’t know pushes us past our habit of just “getting through the next 15 minutes.”
Yup, it was little dense, and I will spare you the details. I learned by plodding through all the philosophical pondering, however, three simple constructs that Socrates bequeathed us. Stay open, Inquire, and Discern. In order to have a meaningful conversation, it requires us to be open to new ideas, to inquire deeply about what the other person is saying, and to discern accurately what is true and what is false.
In her new book, Miracles and Wonder, Elaine Pagels applies the Socratic principles to the historical beginnings of Christianity. Pagels is the best-selling author of the Gnostic Gospels (among many other books) and is a professor at Princeton who has studied the life of Jesus for over 60 years. Her early research focused on the Nag Hammadi Library and other early Christian texts. In this book, she traces how the historical narrative about Jesus evolved over the first 400 years of the Common Era and is still evolving.
Pagels takes the historical approach —drawing on the Gospels, contemporaneous primary source accounts and centuries of academic research to answer the questions of who, in fact, Jesus was. Pagels compares and contrasts the letters of Paul written about 15-20 years after the death of Jesus to the Gospel of Mark written about 70-80 CE, to the gospels of Matthew and Luke written about 80-90CE, to John’s Gospel written about 90-100CE, to the Gnostic Gospels of Philip, Thomas, James, Mary, Q etc. She details how the narratives vary in each of these gospel accounts.
The most attention-grabbing of these narratives has to do with the circumstances of Jesus’ birth. According to Pagels, the doctrine that says that Jesus was born of a virgin is likely a later insertion into the story by Gospel writers seeking to overcome the “inconvenient fact” of his presumed illegitimacy. But unlike some of the early narratives they were defending against — that Mary was promiscuous — Pagels also raises the possibility that the young mother was one of the many victims of marauding Roman soldiers who were then ravaging the area in which she was living. Of course, this does not entirely address how and why the Gospels were written, much less how they came to us. To the contrary, it suggests still deeper questions about the status of different translations, who is capable of interpreting the word of God, and what it means to receive texts whose sources are at the very least mysterious to us. Discerning what’s true and what is false among all these narratives has occupied theologians, historians, and philosophers for 2,000 years.
Without asking these questions, we risk assuming that any one of these narratives or some combination of selective narratives fully explain the texts’ possible meanings. The Jesus of “Miracles and Wonder” is primarily a Jewish radical whose death was recounted by his posthumous followers and eventually transposed into the language of ethics on the one hand, and religious doctrine on the other. All of these questions pose the unavoidable human task of discerning between fiction and fact.
Other than the virgin birth and the resurrection stories, the other major controversial issue surrounds the role of Pontius Pilate and the Jews in the crucifixion. Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, famously presided over the trial of Jesus. The gospels portray Pilate as reluctant to condemn Jesus, recognizing his potential innocence. However, he ultimately succumbed to the pressure of the crowd and the fear of political repercussions, leading to Jesus’ crucifixion. This moment, fraught with tension and moral ambiguity, is often referred to as “Pilate’s dilemma.”
The Gospels depict the situation leading to the crucifixion of Jesus as follows: Jewish leaders arrested Jesus and brought him to Pilate, accusing him of sedition and claiming to be King of the Jews. Pilate questioned Jesus and, according to some accounts, found him not guilty. He attempted to release Jesus, offering the crowd a choice between Jesus and another prisoner, Barabbas. However, the crowd, incited by the Jewish leaders, demanded Jesus’ crucifixion. Fearing a riot and its consequences for his political standing, Pilate relented and ordered Jesus’ crucifixion. He is famously said to have washed his hands, symbolically disclaiming responsibility for Jesus’ death.
The New Testament itself presents a complex picture of who was responsible for Jesus’ death. While the Gospels highlight the role of some Jewish leaders and the crowd in calling for crucifixion, it’s crucial to understand the context:
- Roman Authority: Ultimately, the power to execute resided with the Roman authorities. Crucifixion was a Roman method of execution, and Pilate, as the Roman governor, held the final decision.
- Internal Jewish Dynamics: There were indeed factions within Jerusalem at the time who saw Jesus as a threat to the established religious and social order. The Gospels highlight the role of some chief priests and elders in bringing accusations against Jesus.
- The Crowd: The Gospels depict a crowd calling for Jesus’ crucifixion, but the size and composition of this crowd are debated. It’s unlikely that it represented the entire Jewish population.
Thus, it is a gross oversimplification, and a dangerous misrepresentation, to say that “the Jews” killed Jesus. This charge, often referred to as “deicide,” has been used for centuries to justify anti-Semitism and violence against Jewish people. Many scholars and theologians have thoroughly debunked this notion. The consequences of the deicide accusation have been devastating. Throughout history, it has fueled pogroms, persecutions, and massacres of Jewish communities. It was a central tenet of anti-Semitic ideology, culminating in the Holocaust, where six million Jews were murdered. Even today, this false charge persists in some circles, perpetuating hatred and prejudice.
The point I’m making is that narratives have consequences. Socrates knew that in the 4th century BCE – that’s why he implored his associates to open their minds to different perspectives, to inquire deeply about the substance of the narratives, and then to discern the difference between myth and reality through rigorous analysis. To me, Pagels is a terrific example of someone who applied all three Socratic principles to one of the most controversial events in history. Even though there are conflicting narratives on the life, death, and divinity of Jesus, at least Jesus was a heroic figure who practiced compassion and kindness and who implored his followers to love their neighbors.
With all that in mind, let’s get back to the narratives the Republicans and Democrats are trying to advance. On the 100th day of President Donald Trump’s second term in office, he held a rally outside Detroit, Michigan, in which he claimed that his second term, in his typical incoherent and unsubstantiated hyperbole, has been “the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country, and that’s according to many, many people…. This is the best, they say, 100-day start of any president in history, and everyone is saying it. We’ve just gotten started. You haven’t even seen anything yet.”
Even given his rambling rhetoric, the truth is that the Republicans have done a much better job of selling their narrative than the democrats. The proof is in the pudding – they won. Here are the core elements of the narrative that enabled them to win the popular vote as well as the electoral vote: Trump promised to:
- Secure the borders
- Lower prices
- Fire woke progressives
- End forever wars
- Inculcate Christianity into every aspect of life
- Make America Great Again
- Put America First Again
- Reduce the Deep State
- Eliminate fraud
- Drill baby drill until we have energy independence
- Reverse the trade deficit
- Bring manufacturing home
As a result of these narratives, Republicans were not only able to position themselves as the strongest fighters for border security, lower prices, and a stronger economy, but also as the best retribution for woke progressivism. They were also able to position the Democrats as radically out of touch with cultural and economic issues that impact people outside their elite, liberal, urban bubbles.
The facts, of course, paint a different picture. In his first 100 days Trump:
- Signed 140 executive orders – the most of any President
- Passed only 5 legislative bills – the least of any President since Eisenhour
- Has been sued 220 times in federal court – the most of any President
- Used tariffs to devalue the dollar by about 10%
- Caused the stock market to drop in value almost 20% through chaos and carelessness. (At the 100 day mark, it was down about 7%)
- Held the fewest state department briefings: 20
- Cut funding for medical research
- Shrank GDP
- Created product shortages
- Produced higher unemployment and inflation
- Reduced protections of the environment – clean air and water
- Damaged alliances
- Lowered consumer and business confidence
- Decimated the civil service workforce
- Reduced reproductive rights
- Damaged alliances
- Diminished judicial and legislative powers
- Weaponized ICE, DOJ, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security
- Restricted freedom of speech
- Purged oversight functions, e.g. Inspector Generals
- Deported citizens without due process
- Pardoned criminals
- Undermined trust throughout the world
- Enriched himself and his family
Heather Cox Richardson states that the administration is employing a full court press on a false narrative:
“They are engaged in a marketing campaign to establish Trump’s false version of reality as truth. The White House has also brought into the press pool right-wing influencers, who are asking questions that tee up opportunities for White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt to push administration talking points, which the influencers then amplify on social media.”
Even though there is a stark contrast between the slogans and the truth, competing narratives are still at war with each other. Currently, 90% of Republicans still support Trump, while only 4% of Democrats do. His overall approval rating hovers around 40%. Before you take any comfort in these numbers, however, it’s important to acknowledge that only 27% of the voting public approves of how the Democrats are doing.
In a recent NYT column, David French discusses these competing narratives within his evangelical base:
“The Christian right is dead, but the religious right is stronger than it’s ever been. Another way of putting it is that the religious right has divorced itself from historical Christian theology, but still holds its partisan beliefs with religious intensity. The religious fervor is there. Christian virtues are not.”
So what do Democrats need to do the change the narrative and win in 2026 and 2028?
For a possible solution, let me refer to Michael Porter, professor at Harvard Business School and director of the Strategy and Competitiveness Institute. Porter founded the Monitor Group and advises business around the world to choose the right products and services, to tailor each message to a specific market, and to select the best distribution strategy for each product in each market. If we apply that construct to Democratic strategy, we might focus on popular products like:
- A growing economy
- Fair and reasonable immigration reform (like Metta Frederiksen has done in Norway)
- Health care and safety net protection
- Tangible outcomes and less burdensome processes and regulations
- Investment in research and education
- Infrastructure
- Civil rights
We might expand and diversify our markets to:
- Religious AND secular
- Young AND old
- Rich AND poor
- Rural AND urban
- Liberal AND conservative
- Business friendly AND labor friendly
- Black, AND brown, AND white
- Educated AND uneducated
And we might broaden our narrative distribution channels to multiple forms of social media in order to inspire each market with the right distribution channel:
- Mainstream media
- Podcasts
- Social Media
- Influencers (over 10,000 influences have more than 1 million followers)
I wish the Democratic Party would learn the importance of opening, inquiring, and discerning from Socrates; would turn to Pagels for a scholarly approach to history, context, and narrative; and consult with Michael Porter to refine and bolster their marketing strategy with the right products, services, and distribution channels.
I’m hoping that we will all open our lens to different perspectives. I’m hoping we will deepen our inquiry of the narratives we consume from multiple media sources. I’m hoping we will more rigorously discern the differences between facts, fiction, and fantasy. I’m hoping we will more crisply create narratives that are responsive to a broader base. And I’m hoping we will leverage the genius of strategy experts to mobilize more people behind a compassionate, compelling, and constructive narrative. May It be so.
Also published on Medium.
You just keep getting better and better! Thank you my friend!❤️