Attention is an outcome, not a process. 

People clearly struggle to understand this. The real contest – the set of actions – is to make ideas legible.

Look at Mamdani’s campaign. He picked one thing –affordability – and made it the backbone of every message and appearance. He didn’t try to be everything to everyone. He became visible by being unmistakably clear. 

Obviously, he also played the social media and podcast game well and was in the streets a ton. But plenty of people could throw money at eyeballs and not capture any sort of sustained belief.

Capital follows the most legible ideas, even if they're wrong. If they're legible – if they are well-articulated and able to be interacted with – then attention will flow toward them.

Trump is the same! He has lots of ideas, most of which make no sense, but he memes very well in a way that makes him legible to different people.

This is also why brand is important. It is a form of legibility.

When we talk about "narrative strategy," it's less about how to get distribution and more about how to make yourself legible so that distribution is effective.

He also had a joy filled campaign. Cuomo’s you could say was the stark opposite.

degensub

This opened my mind on certain things. True