Let’s Get Specific

Derek Thompson: “Zohran Mamdani isn’t just charismatic; he’s charismatically specific. In his campaign videos, he’ll walk through city bodegas to tell voters how he might tweak the details of urban retail policy. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a rising star in the Democratic Party, went viral after the election with a straight-to-camera campaign to fix an esoteric regulation that barred daycare workers from peeling bananas to feed infants. She painstakingly explained that peeling fruit technically violated food-processing standards, and so young kids risked going hungry because their teachers were afraid of anti-peeling lawsuits. On the right-of-center podcast Flagrant, Pete Buttigieg also went viral, not by offering a familiar criticism of Donald Trump, but rather by giving a detailed day-in-the-life description of what America would look like if sensible liberal ideas won out.”

“Mamdani, MGP, and Buttigieg represent distinct corners of the Democratic tent. But their communicative successes all borrow from the same lesson. In politics today, specificity is a superpower. Specificity tells voters: I care so much about your frustration that I’ve sought to deeply understand the details of what’s behind it. Specificity doesn’t just offer a story to grab people’s momentary attention. It promises agency. If we can name our problems, we can fix them.”