Kamala's challenge: Keep the Story Strong

To understand how Kamala Harris cannon-barreled onto the political scene in a way that felt genuinely new, even to those of us who followed her in her role as vice president, and to understand the peril of her current strategy of being out of the media eye, we need to understand two things about story:Stories are the basic unit of media—not facts alone, certainly not policies. Stories. Stories aren’t compelling when they’re static. Characters reveal new aspects of themselves, or if they fail to, they turn into background.The difference between live characters and static background characters is the difference between facing a tiger and facing tiger-patterned wallpaper. Try to turn your eyes away from the tiger. Try to stay interested in the wallpaper. You can’t do either.Kamala stepping into the role of presidential nominee was one of the great stories of our lifetime. From being VP ( the political office equivalent of wallpaper), she emerged as a compelling main character, one with an enormous challenge and mission, carrying the fate of democracy on her shoulders. All of us thrilled as she showed mastery, overcame obstacles within the party, then landed unexpected blows against Trump, out-rallying him, out-entertaining him, out-moneying him, and in their first ever direct encounter, out-debating him.Unheard-of things happened: her favorables shot up, normally static polls showed sharp movement, enthusiasm spiked to rarefied levels.Then she— or her advisors— chose to deploy a standard-issue election playbook. Show message discipline. Avoid gaffes. Avoid unplanned exposure. Play defense. In other words, turn back into wallpaper. The race settled back into a static fight between two settled options. The sense of action evaporated, Trump went back to dominating the media with his usual tactics (escalating outrageousness), and Kamala disappeared. Critics said she needed more policy. Or more interviews. What she really needs is more story. To show development. To unveil aspects of herself that haven’t been apparent, or show us how she changes in relation to events. To generate novelty—that is, news.Walter Mosley, the writer of thrillers, knows a thing or two about keeping people engaged (In fact, you can take his Master Class on the subject). He defines a story’s plot as a “structure of revelation.” Challenges arise, actions happen—but the revelation or ‘reveal’ that makes them meaningful, that bonds you to the story and keeps you turning the page, is all at the level of character. You learn more about the main character--“why they’re there, what they’ve done, why they’ve done what they’ve done”—and you start to build a picture of who they are. You worry about them. And you have the feeling of continual news, and that you’re learning something. As Mosley puts it:You want to be surprised. You want your assumptions to be a question. You want the [action] to tell you something about the world that you didn't know about when you started.All the more so when we’re dealing with the real world, not a fiction. We want our main character—our presidential candidate—to show us, through their handling of challenges, new ways of looking at old problems, new strengths and possibilities. In other words, to inspire us, to make us feel that they (and we through them) can handle what life is throwing at us, whether that’s inflation, middle east crisis, childcare expenses, etc.It’s a tall order. We see how Trump does it: to paint a (fantasy) world so dark, so threatening, that the fact that he prevails over all his adversaries makes him (to those who buy his initial picture), a beacon of strength.What Kamala has shown us is that she’s a character who sees the (real) problems, and can handle them while keeping her head, keeping things normal, even joyous. Her way will be competence, steely-eyed realism about challenges, and optimism about solving them.To keep us engaged with and believing in that character, she needs to be out there, unafraid, with fresh ideas, surprising insights, joyously competent energy. When she hides, when she reverts to wallpaper, doubt creeps in—are there solutions? Was our belief in an image, or is there really someone there? And if our doubts creep in— if even Democrats are wondering where she is— then all the scared less-affiliated people out there, the ones more susceptible to the fantasy world Trump/Fox paints, waver and then vanish.They lose the plot.And that’s the real reason she needs to be in the media, and what her strategy needs to be: surprise us by revealing more of who she is. Keep showing herself to be the main character, a source of news and action and insight, and (especially) an avatar of surprising (and surprisingly competent) ways of handling things.