NEW YORK– Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination “on behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest country in the world.” America, Barack Obama thundered, “is ready for a better story.” JD Vance emphasized that the Biden administration “is not the end of our story,” and Donald Trump called on his fellow Republicans to “write our own exciting chapter of the American story.”
“This week,” comedian and former Obama administration speechwriter Jon Lovett said Thursday on NBC, “was about a story.”
In the discourse of American politics, this kind of talk from both sides is not surprising – even appropriate. Because in the 2024 campaign season, as in the fabric of American culture as a whole, the concept of “story” is everywhere.
This year’s political conventions, like many of their kind, were curated collections of elaborate stories carefully crafted to achieve one goal: getting elected. But behind them lay a fierce, high-stakes battle over how to portray the greatest story of all—the story of America that, as Harris put it, should be “the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story that ever was told’.
The American story – an unlikely tale, full of twists that sometimes seem, as so many like to say, “just like a movie” – is at the core of American culture for a unique reason.
Americans live in one of the few societies built not on hundreds of years of common culture, but on the stories themselves – “the shining city upon the hill,” “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” “all men are created equal . Even memorable advertising campaigns – ‘See the USA in your Chevrolet’ – are part of this. In some ways, the United States—not coincidentally, the place where the frontier myth, Hollywood, and Madison Avenue were all born—has built its existence and meaning by repeating and repeating the story as it goes along.
The campaigns understand that. So they present voters with two different – starkly opposed, some might say – versions of the American story.
From Republicans comes one flavor of the story: an emphasis on the fact that to make America great again in the future, we must fight to revive traditional values and recapture the moral strength and courage of previous generations win. In his congressional speech last month, Trump invoked three separate conflicts — the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and World War II — to evoke the glories of American history.
To reinforce its vision, the Republican Party brought in musician Kid Rock, famous wrestler Hulk Hogan and Lee Greenwood to sing “God Bless the USA.” Trump knelt in front of the firefighting gear of Corey Comperatore, who had been killed in an assassination attempt on the Vance spoke of “villains” just days earlier and brought up the Appalachian coming-of-age story he told in “Hillbilly Elegy.”
Republicans, as they often do, leaned on military storylines and brought out families of slain service members to criticize President Joe Biden’s “weak” leadership. And they did everything they could to manage their constituencies. Vance’s wife, Usha, who is of Indian descent, praised him as “a meat and potatoes man” – a classic American trope – while underscoring that he respected her vegetarian diet and had learned how to cook Indian food for her mother. .
“What could I say that hasn’t been said before?” She said as she introduced Vance. “After all, the man was already the subject of a Ron Howard movie. ”
And the Democrats? Their convention last week focused on a new and different future full of “joy” and free from what Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg called “Trump’s politics of darkness.” It was an implicit “Star Wars” metaphor if ever there was one.
It was hard to miss that Democrats were not only uniting around the multiracial, multicultural nation that Harris personifies, but at the same time methodically trying to reclaim the candid pieces of the American story that have been in Republican hands in recent years.
The flag was everywhere, as was the concept of freedom. Tim Walz entered to the tune of John Mellencamp’s “Small Town,” an ode to the vision of America that Republicans typically trumpet. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota laid out the qualities of the common man that Walz embodies: someone who can change a car light, a hunter, a “dad in plaid.”
The former geography teacher’s history as a football coach was also explored, with burly boys in Mankato West Scarlets jerseys fanning out across the stage to the marching band music from “The Halls of Montezuma.” They even brought in a former Republican member of Congress to amplify all the footage by saying the quiet part loudly.
“I want to let my fellow Republicans in on the secret: Democrats are just as patriotic as we are,” said Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican who has criticized Trump.
While watching the videos and testimonials at both conferences, one storytelling technique stood out: what journalists call “character-driven” stories. Whether advocating abortion rights, warning of massive illegal immigration, or channeling anger about inflation, “ordinary” Americans became the narrative building blocks for national concerns.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson put it this way about the DNC this past week in her Substack, “Letters from an American”: “The many stories of ordinary Americans rising from adversity through hard work, decency, and service to others implicitly confuse these stories . individual struggle with the struggle of the United States itself.”
Over the past generation, storytelling tools have become more democratic. We are all publishers now – on X, on TikTok, on Instagram, on Truth Social. And we are all storytellers, telling mini versions of the American story in whatever way we can. Perspectives that have been silenced and suppressed for a long time are finding their way into the light.
Beyond the questions of truth and misinformation, how can a unifying American story be conjured when hundreds of millions of people can now tell it differently and from their own perspectives? Democratization is useful, but it can also be chaotic and difficult to understand.
“A people that cannot stand together cannot stand at all,” said poet Amanda Gorman in her speech to the DNC. But with so many stories to get through, is unity harder than ever? Is there even a single, unifying “American story”? ‘Should that be there?
Ultimately, these elections are more than ever about telling stories. Because the loudest, most compelling story—smoothly told using 21st century industrial communications—will likely win.
In the meantime, efforts to capture and amplify versions of that narrative will continue until Election Day and beyond. As long as there is an American nation, millions of people will try to tell us what it means – desperate, angry, optimistic, compelling. Stories are a powerful weapon, but also a powerful metaphor. As Walz said about leaving Trump and Vance behind, “I’m ready to turn the page.”
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Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation at The Associated Press, has been writing about American culture and politics for 35 years. Follow him at https://x.com/anthonyted
