Thread: Remarkable in 2025 how opponents of President Trump still don't understand the power of story. Not facts, not truth: Story. Stories motivate humans. During the campaign and in these opening weeks of his 2nd term, Trump has told powerful (if often fictional) stories. 1/ - ThreadSky

brianmannadk.bsky.social • 1 day ago

Thread: Remarkable in 2025 how opponents of President Trump still don't understand the power of story. Not facts, not truth: Story. Stories motivate humans. During the campaign and in these opening weeks of his 2nd term, Trump has told powerful (if often fictional) stories. 1/

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brianmannadk.bsky.social•1 day ago

In these stories, there are clear heroes, clear villains and simple swift actions that can bring happy endings. Government is the enemy. Destroy it. Waste and corruption are rampant. Carve it out like a cancer. Process, details, facts don't matter. What matters is the story. 2/

brianmannadk.bsky.social•1 day ago

Journalists chase Trump stories like movie critics, pointing out parts of them are ludicrous. Musk isn't saving the kind of money he claims. Ukraine didn't start a war with Russia. DEI isn't cause plane crashes or forest fires. But most Americans don't follow or trust critics. 3/

brianmannadk.bsky.social•1 day ago

Democrats (and some Republicans) meanwhile quibble over process and gripe about granular impacts to certain constituencies of Trump's policies. What they don't do is offer an alternate story. They don't say what role Americans have in their version. What's the happy ending? 4/

brianmannadk.bsky.social•1 day ago

Some are clearly hoping that Americans will buy an alternate story where Trump is the villain. But why would they? Because he's moving fast? Because he's shattering old systems and institutions? Because he says outrageous things. In the movies we love that's what heroes do. 5/

brianmannadk.bsky.social•1 day ago

The question as Trump's 2nd term powers forward is whether anyone can or will craft a different story. A story where democracy and the rule of law and factual truth aren't reduced to wonky policy statements. A story that offers Americans something more than a weary status quo. 6/

brianmannadk.bsky.social•1 day ago

So far that hasn't happened. Which leaves us with the question. Will Trump's story will unravel on its own. Will his blizzard of disruptions cause so much change in so many lives, that a popular tale of national reinvention turns into a story of chaos and uncertainty? End/

jpaul.bsky.social•1 day ago

We wouldn't have heard his stories without the media interpreting and amplifying, in short normalizing, them.

brianmannadk.bsky.social•1 day ago

The vast majority of people who use Trump's stories to frame their lives aren't getting them through "the media." Journalists at least since 2017 have done a solid job making clear Trump's stories are often fictional. The problem is that there are no alternate stories.

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