There is a liberal predicament of not telling, or not believing in, alpha stories. And it imposes during elections a disadvantage on the Democratic Party, which is, for the most part, liberal. And I am a liberal.

So, as Lenin asked, what's to be done? Actually, in a way, not much. This even though what we have learned so far positions us so that – as I will explain a little further on – we can at least appreciate what the difficulty is and act so as to confront it effectively. On that score, forewarned is forearmed.

Where Are We?

Here is how things stand. At the center of American politics, elections are contested by increasingly polarized candidates. Technically speaking, rightists such as George W. Bush tell, or allude to, large and powerful alpha stories of hewing to tradition, to small government, and to capitalism. At the same time, leftists such as Barack Obama forego large-scale storytelling and promote instead philosophical pragmatism, which generates a series of possible solutions to a list of situations they regard as problematic.

It follows, in campaign face-offs, that liberals are handicapped because alpha stories sometimes provide a sense of ideological coherence that can sway a significant number of voters decisively. After Michael Dukakis lost to Bush I in 1988, Democratic strategist Stanley Greenberg called on Democrats to “reorganize the disturbing ‘facts’ of American life into a coherent story about the nation's problems and its path of recovery.” After John Kerry lost to Bush II in 2004, Democratic strategist James Carville said much the same thing. Thus he captured the entire drama in the quotation which heads this chapter and which intimates that, even when Democrats promote attractive “issue positions,” they lack a powerful story to tie those together.