The Reality Show We Need By End of Week

On Inauguration Day, I launched this newsletter to join with kindred spirits¹ in facing the daunting question, “What now?” Since then, I’ve had a surprising number of people sign up to chat with me. I usually start these video calls with the same three questions:

1. How worried are you—and why?
2. Is your life still ‘business as usual’ or have you already made changes in response to what you’re seeing?
3. Going forward, what actions are you contemplating? More broadly, what do you think we—the concerned collective—need to do?

More than once this week, that last question has been met with visible disappointment and something along the lines of, “Well $#@!, Kate. I hoped you’d have some ideas. I want to do something. I need to do something. But I also need it to fit into, say, the next seven minutes. Because that’s how much time I have before daycare pickup.”

Like any voracious reader—with voracious reader friends who are always circulating good stuff—I of course have resources I can provide. For example, the Coup-o-meter does a good job of tracking exactly how dire things are and links to a few of the many organizations working hard to hold the line. But coming off my most recent call, I realized, head in hands, this is not enough. Ordinary citizens sharing links with like-minded people is nowhere near enough. Sure, it leaves us more informed—but it doesn’t leave us feeling united, galvanized, and focused. For that, we need leadership.

I no longer believe that our elected reps are (common refrain on the street) “doing nothing.” I concur, however, that they are not doing enough. It’s not that I think they need to work harder behind the scenes necessarily; I’ve become convinced in recent weeks that many individuals and organizations are fighting right now with everything they’ve got. The problem is that it is in fact largely behind the scenes.

So, what if:

Starting, oh, tomorrow (though next week is probably fine), there were a 20-30 minute daily YouTube video² called We the People (don’t get hung up on the name—we can workshop that later).

And every day, one of our current or former elected reps served as host and walked us through:
1) What Trump et al did yesterday—who it affects and why it matters;
2) What can and should be done in response; and
3) What our country could look like, i.e. they start to paint an alternate vision (the thing that almost every post-mortem agrees was missing from the 2024 presidential campaign).

Can’t picture it? Here in alphabetical order (lest I be accused of playing favorites) is two weeks’ worth of hosts: Andy Beshear, Pete Buttigieg, Chris Coons, Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost, Ruben Gallego, Seth Moulton, Chris Murphy, Wes Moore, Gavin Newsom, AOC, JB Pritzker, Jamie Raskin, Josh Shapiro, Elissa Slotkin, Raphael Warnock, and Gretchen Whitmer.

Why have our existing or aspiring leaders helm the show? Why not have them interviewed by professional reporters? Because this is a crisis, and responding to crises requires unmediated leadership. Until a clear opposition leader emerges, we should hand the mic around—give any of our elected officials, past or present, the chance to step up. It may be messy at first, but it’ll be better than a vacuum—which is the current perception (sorry, hard-working public servants). Moreover, by the time we get to the mid-terms, and then 2028, we’ll have more than putative “bench strength.” We’ll have a small team of well-known quantities: YouTube videos and their audio-only counterparts are intimate; over time, they make you feel like you really know a person. Lastly, but important in our fractured media environment: a show like this would give those of us who are feeling so lost and hopeless one clear place to go for inspiration and marching orders—albeit one place with a wide range of voices distributed on a gazillion different platforms.

One last thought before I hit send and duck for cover: perhaps every host gets, say, ten shots at the helm, but after that, only those with the highest number of views get to return for subsequent episodes? What would be the pros and cons of that? More generally: how do we deploy the conventions of reality TV, social media, and gamification—not for entertainment but instead to surface and spotlight the most compelling leaders and the strongest ideas? In other words: how do we start using modern comms both to shape the world we want AND (assume for the moment that we will have free and fair elections down the road) to win at the ballot box?

Whether you love this idea or hate it, I hope to hear from you.

Thanks,
Kate

¹Though I’m a registered Democrat who has worked (in a low-level, volunteer capacity) for Democratic campaigns, my definition of kindred spirits is not constrained by party affiliation. To some extent, I’ve always been this way; I hate any artificial groupings that pit people against one another—short-circuiting the connection, collaboration, creativity, and compromise needed to tackle hard problems. But these days, I’m especially unconcerned with party affiliation; these days, I view anyone committed to the rule of law as a potential friend I can probably work with.

²By “YouTube” I just mean a low-cost video that can be produced, edited, and distributed—both in full and as clips—on every imaginable platform. COPE in my business means “create once, publish everywhere.” That’s what we need to be doing with this opposition content, but also: we need to be doing it in a way that creates accountability and focuses our collective energy every damn day. Acolytes of Steve Bannon are “flooding the zone” with disinformation to consolidate power and wealth with a few. If we are to preserve our country for the greater good, we need to counter with the best ideas we can muster—not just from reporters, commentators, and analysts—but from the men and women bold enough to enter the arena.

Photo by israel palacio on Unsplash