Democrats are Losing the War for Attention. Badly.

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 17 January 2025

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Trump is a master at wielding attention. He’s been owning news cycles and squatting in Americans’ minds for much of the last decade. And for his second term he has an ally in Elon Musk, a man with a similar uncanny skill set. Trump and Musk seem to have figured out something about how attention works in our fragmented media age — and how to use it for political and cultural power — that Democrats simply haven’t. So what is it? What do they understand about attention that their opponents don’t? Chris Hayes is the host of MSNBC’s “All In,” and has written a forthcoming book, “The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource.” And he’s a brilliant thinker on how our modern attention economy works and what it’s doing to our politics. We discuss what Hayes sees as a revolution happening to our attention, which he compares to the Industrial Revolution in its scale and impact; why the old rules about attention in politics no longer apply; the key insight Trump had about attention that fueled his rise; why Musk didn’t really overpay for Twitter; and how Democrats can compete in this new attentional world. Mentioned: “Your Mind Is Being Fracked” by The Ezra Klein Show with D. Graham Burnett “The Great Crypto Crash” by Annie Lowrey Book Recommendations: Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Mixing by Isaac Jones, with Efim Shapiro and Aman Sahota. Our supervising editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Rollin Hu, Elias Isquith and Kristin Lin. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show. On Monday, Donald Trump is going to take the oath of office for the second time.
0:36.5	During his first administration, there was a
0:39.1	question of how he wields policy in the government, the question of how he wields and uses and raises
0:44.3	money. We're used to talking about that with politicians. But there was also the separate question
0:49.0	of how he wields and uses attention. And Trump, whatever else he is, he's a master at using and wielding
0:56.0	attention. And I'd say he's a disciple, an ally in Musk now. Elon Musk, I think, is probably the most
1:03.2	attentionally rich person in the world alongside Donald Trump. I think that Musk's attentional riches
1:09.2	might be more important now than his financial riches.
1:12.7	And so if you're going to think about politics in a way that is able to predict what happens in it,
1:17.2	you have to look at and watch and think about how attention is being spent and wielded and amassed and controlled.
1:23.4	And that's what this conversation is about. It's a curtain raiser on the intentional regime we're about to enter.
1:30.4	My friend Chris Hayes is best known as the host of MSNBC's 8PM show, All In. But he just wrote a great book called The Sirens Call, how attention became the world's most endangered resource.
1:43.1	I've read most of the books on attention out there.
1:46.1	This one is, I think, the best one at understanding the value of attention today.
1:51.2	Because it isn't just endangered.
1:53.0	It is the world's most valuable resource.
1:56.3	And the people who are on top of the world right now understand its value and understand how to
2:00.8	wield it. And if there is going to be a successful opposition to them, that opposition is going
2:06.1	to need to understand its value and understand how to wield it. And right now it doesn't.
2:12.0	As always, my email as your client show at NYTimes.com.
2:26.1	Chris Hayes, welcome to the show.
2:27.4	Really great to be here.
	...

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