Politics in an Attention Economy

To succeed in American politics today, it is no longer enough to be a skilled politician. Increasingly, candidates must also function as cultural figures who can break through an attention economy where voters are flooded with information controlled by algorithms that shape what they see.

While 42 percent of Americans actively avoid political news, they still encounter stories about power, institutions, and leadership every day through entertainment media. Democracy 2076’s research found that government-relevant entertainment content reaches a daily average of 58 percent of Americans. In an environment where sustained attention is scarce, the campaigns that break through are often the ones that tell stories voters already recognize.

As leaders at Democracy 2076, our perspective on this challenge comes from two different vantage points.

With the amount of information we’re inundated with daily, influence is much less likely to come from one breakout moment and is instead generated by a sustained drumbeat of content.

Ade Salami has lived in Minneapolis her whole life and worked for a Minneapolis City Council member during the uprising that followed the murder of George Floyd. She watched that moment remake the political coalitions in Minneapolis, where a veto-proof majority of council members aligned around the idea that the city’s approach to policing needed to change. More recently, she has watched another political moment remake coalitions in the city as federal immigration enforcement operations and the fatal shootings of two Minneapolis residents sparked protests and concerns about immigration and law enforcement tactics among residents, irrespective of partisan allegiances.

In her doctoral research in social policy, Melody Mohebi examined the rise of civil society in modern Iran. In the aftermath of 2026’s massive antigovernment protests in Iran and the resulting political repression, later followed by United States and Israeli military strikes, she sees how people’s inability to imagine democracy and think past the immediate transition is hindering the moment. This shows the significance of fostering imagination even when instinct may be to focus on defense. Melody went on to work on narrative change for the media organization Participant Media, where she would hear members of the social impact sector ask how they could produce a breakthrough story like Al Gore’s 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

Yet, as we have both come to realize, a film like Gore’s does not contain some secret formula. Its impact resulted from reaching audiences who were ready to engage. Today’s media environment makes it far less likely that a single story will have that kind of influence and consciousness-raising effect. With the amount of information we’re inundated with daily, influence is much less likely to come from one breakout moment and is instead generated by a sustained drumbeat of content.

These experiences point to a broader strategic challenge facing campaigns and civic organizations today: Breaking through requires understanding both the issues voters are grappling with and the kinds of stories that already resonate with them.

Our research suggests a strategic shift. Campaigns and civic organizations that want to expand their coalition must recognize emerging wedge issues that cut across partisan lines and focus on engaging voters using stories that reflect their values. As we see it, civic participation grows when people feel seen in their values, and when organizations tell stories and highlight issues that match the world as people actually experience it.

A Changing Issue Landscape

American politics periodically undergoes realignments: moments when voter coalitions shift, the wedge issues dividing the parties change, and the ideologies underlying those coalitions evolve.

Much of modern political strategy is still built around a voter who does not actually exist: the swing voter with consistently moderate views—neither fully conservative nor progressive. However, we’ve found that many Americans hold a mix of left- and right-leaning beliefs that are shaped by experience, material conditions, and cultural context rather than a coherent ideological midpoint.

A voter might support government action to lower prescription drug prices while also favoring stricter immigration enforcement. Another may support higher minimum wages and stronger labor protections while remaining skeptical of large federal institutions or cultural change they perceive as moving too quickly. These combinations are common in American public opinion, even though party politics often forces them into opposing ideological camps.

Through our research, we identified 17 emerging wedge issues reshaping the political landscape. Every one of these issues creates new factions where individuals on different sides of our current political binary will be shoulder to shoulder. Some of the emerging divides we identified are already visible in public debate. Questions around artificial intelligence, for example, are scrambling traditional political alignments as voters across the ideological spectrum have concerns about technological innovation, job displacement, and regulation. Debates around foreign policy and international conflict increasingly divide voters along lines that cut across traditional left-right coalitions. Recent discussions about the war in Iran suggest it could become a central cleavage within the Republican party, even as overall support for the conflict among Republicans remains high.

Recognizing these emerging divisions is critical for campaigns and civic organizations trying to build coalitions in a political environment where voters increasingly hold cross-pressured views that do not fit neatly into existing party narratives.

The Opportunity in a Realignment

Realignments rarely announce themselves clearly in real time. They are often first visible in the concerns people begin raising, long before they appear in surveys. That lesson became particularly clear after the 2016 election. Many observers were surprised by the scale of the political shifts that occurred, but those changes had been building for years. Looking back, the question was not what had changed but who had noticed the changes first, and whether their insights could have surfaced earlier.

That question shaped how we approached our research. We spoke with leaders of large membership-based organizations to ask what new issue divides they were beginning to hear from their members. Campaigns sometimes engage in similar listening efforts. During the 2016 election, for example, Donald Trump’s campaign reportedly monitored local talk radio across the country to hear what issues people were discussing in their communities. By paying attention to those conversations, they were able to identify grievances and themes that were not yet central to national political debates.

In Minneapolis, the disconnect between on-the-ground realities and the national discourse became particularly clear during the recent federal immigration enforcement operations in the city. As protests erupted and political leaders debated the role of federal agents, the conversation in Minneapolis was far more complex than the binary narratives dominating national media. Some voters supported stronger immigration enforcement while simultaneously criticizing the tactics being used.

Without that sense of agency, political debates can easily become reactive. Voters respond to events as they unfold but struggle to imagine what a different system might look like.

Focus groups conducted with 2024 Trump voters after the events in Minneapolis captured that tension. One participant described the enforcement tactics as “extreme,” while another asked whether it was necessary for agents to be “going door to door.” Several participants said they supported stronger immigration enforcement in principle but believed the way it was being carried out needed reform. Several participants also expressed frustration that they did not see either party offering a broader vision for how the immigration system should function.

As one participant put it: “We keep talking about better training for ICE agents, but immigration is broader than just the enforcement agency….They’ve got to reach across the aisles and get a better way for the process for immigration. I understand we want to get the criminals out. That makes sense, but it just seems like they’re very shortsighted right now.”

That frustration also reflects low baseline levels of political agency and imagination, which our research identified across all audiences. We found that only half of Americans feel like they know what they can do to bring about a better future, and only about 30 percent can imagine a better future for our democracy.

Some political leaders have begun experimenting with ways to increase that sense of agency. During the recent immigration enforcement operations, for example, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker encouraged residents to document interactions with federal agents. This move reframed the moment not only as a crisis but as something to which citizens could actively respond.

Without that sense of agency, political debates can easily become reactive. Voters respond to events as they unfold but struggle to imagine what a different system might look like. When leaders respond only to crises without offering a broader vision, voters are left reacting rather than imagining alternatives.

From Messaging to Storytelling

If voters are struggling to imagine how change happens, then the way campaigns and civic organizations communicate about politics becomes especially important. In a saturated media environment, breaking through often requires more than presenting policy arguments. It requires telling stories that voters—and the algorithms shaping their media environments—already recognize.

Messaging typically focuses on declarative statements or policy positions. Storytelling works differently. It creates a narrative arc with characters, conflict, and resolution. It is the difference between stating, “The economic system is failing working families,” and telling a story about how a parent who cannot afford daycare for their young child can vote for a mayor who will bring about free childcare so that the city is affordable for families from all income levels. Our research sought to understand what stories about democracy would help voters identify a problem, feel a sense of agency through action, and offer a resolution in the form of a better imagined future.

To understand what narratives voters are already connecting with, we examined voters’ entertainment media consumption habits to see what stories they already choose to watch. Our research revealed that audiences tend to gravitate toward particular types of heroes and types of change that reflect one of four deeper value orientations: community, order, autonomy, and authority. The US population is divided equally across these quadrants.

These value orientations also tend to correlate with broader political preferences. Voters who prioritize community values appear more frequently in Democratic coalitions, while authority and order values are more common among Republican voters. Autonomy values often appear most strongly among independents and lower-propensity voters.

These values shape both the kinds of protagonists that people find compelling and how they believe change should happen. Specifically, the research reveals that most voters can be differentiated on two axes. The first is whether they prefer heroes who are insiders or outsiders. The second is whether they are drawn to and moved by those who seek a transformation that fundamentally alters a system or those who seek restoration to a real or imagined past.

This distinction is not about ideology but about how people believe change should happen, and either orientation can apply across the political spectrum. Restoring a New Deal–style social contract may appeal to progressives, while a politically conservative voter may be drawn to a transformative vision of dramatically cutting back government services.

How Campaigns Already Use Storytelling

Many successful campaigns already use storytelling to connect with voters.

Trump’s campaigns offer an example of how layering different narrative frameworks can expand a political coalition. His core message—“Make America Great Again”—is a story of outsider restoration, appealing strongly to voters who prioritize authority. At the same time, his attacks on political elites invoke outsider transformation, resonating with voters who prioritize autonomy, which we often see most strongly among lower-propensity and independent voters. His emphasis on law and order activates insider restoration, appealing to voters who prioritize order, including many non-college-educated White voters who realigned to the Republican coalition in 2016.

Many Democratic campaigns, by contrast to Trump’s narrative layering, have often emphasized insider transformation narratives—of reforming institutions to better serve communities—which resonate strongly with community-oriented voters, or a quarter of the population.

Still, politicians across the ideological spectrum use narrative layering in different contexts. In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign used both transformation and restoration narratives to connect with different audiences. His proposals around affordability offered a transformative vision for younger voters who had never experienced New York as affordable.

At the same time, he invoked a restorative vision of returning the city to a time when working-class families could afford to live there. When asked what New York might look like after two terms as mayor, Mamdani said: “It is a city that is more affordable, that works better, and where we have restored public excellence into public service.” Mamdani’s messaging around affordability centered on economic insecurity using both narratives of transformation and restoration to resonate across traditional partisan lines, helping him attract former Trump voters into his coalition while also mobilizing younger voters facing rising housing costs.

Mamdani’s campaign did more than use storytelling to expand its reach in the electorate. It also constructed a narrative arc that strengthened people’s sense of agency and imagination about the future of democracy. The campaign named the problem of high rent, provided agency by telling voters that their vote could change the rent, and offered a resolution that allowed voters to imagine a better future in which rent would be frozen.

Stories that provide this kind of agency and imagination can expand who sees themselves in a campaign and motivate participation, especially in a political environment where many voters struggle to imagine how change happens.

Three Lessons for Campaigns and Civic Organizations

Taken together, these findings suggest several lessons for campaigns and civic organizations navigating this moment of political realignment.

First, focus on the issues with which voters are actually grappling. During realignments, the questions dividing voters often shift before campaigns or nonprofit advocacy organizations recognize the change. Many political strategies still focus on familiar debates framed in familiar ways even as voters are increasingly concerned with emerging issues such as artificial intelligence or geopolitical conflict. Organizations that remain anchored to yesterday’s issue landscape risk missing opportunities to build new coalitions around the questions voters are beginning to ask.

Mamdani’s campaign did more than use storytelling to expand its reach in the electorate. It also constructed a narrative arc that strengthened people’s sense of agency and imagination about the future of democracy.

Second, tell stories voters already recognize. In an attention economy, campaigns and civic organizations compete not only with other political messages but with the entire cultural ecosystem. Storytelling that aligns with familiar narrative frameworks—insider or outsider heroes, restoration or transformation—can help messages break through. When people encounter political ideas through narrative structures that they already understand and that reflect their values, they are more likely to engage with the message and identify with it.

Third, offer agency and imagination. Many voters struggle to picture how change happens or what a better system might look like. Messages focused only on criticizing the status quo can leave voters feeling cynical or powerless. Stories that show agency through action and offer a vision of the future can help motivate people to participate.

In the lead-up to the next election cycle, civic organizations and campaigns face a choice: default to familiar tactics or recognize the changing issue landscape and the narrative frameworks through which voters interpret politics.

If civic organizations and campaigns use storytelling to expand their audiences—and, most importantly, help voters imagine and build a pro-democracy future that addresses their needs—the next election cycle becomes more than a bid for turnout. It becomes practice for a healthier democratic era.