🎙️ What a show tells
Advisory Opinions
- RIGHTour grouping of the show
- 23claims in our motif index
- 22motifs they came up in
⚠️ Stories told, not claims that they're true.
What the show's hosts, guests, callers and the clips they play said, as claims in our words, filed by the shape of the story. "Came up on" the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which.
✍️ Its signature
what it tells far more often than the other shows we follow, and what they tell that it never does; each motif colored by its genre, the layer of story it is
- Archetypesa kind of person
- Plotswhat happened
- Beliefsa premise
- Theorieswhat people think is behind it
- Argumentsa move in an argument
- ⚪ left white, the smaller genres:
- Valueshow things ought to be
✍️ Tells more than others
motifs it tells far more often than the other shows we follow; the bar is how many times more often, by its share of its tellings against theirs
🙈 Others tell, it doesn't
motifs told on the most other shows that never came up on this one; the bar is how many other shows told it
- 📜 Political party surge 47 shows
- 📜 Losing the base 47 shows
- 🕵️ It's the economy, stupid 43 shows
- 🕵️ Enthusiasm gap 43 shows
- 🕵️ The war hits your wallet 42 shows
- 📜 Political retaliation 42 shows
- 📜 Political realignment 41 shows
- 📜 Referendum on the president 41 shows
- 🗣️ The buck stops here 40 shows
- 📜 Unpopular war 40 shows
🧩 Its repertoire
every motif its claims came up in, the most first: 22 in all
🎨 What kind of stories: its tellings by genre
🧩 Told most
the motifs its claims came up in, the most first; the bar is how many of its claims
- 📜 Spoiler candidate ×5
- 📜 Ratf*cking ×4
- 📜 Lawfare ×3
- 📜 Intimidation ×2
- 📜 Selling indulgences ×2
- 📜 Pay to play ×2
- ⚖️ Original meaning ×2
- 🕵️ Social trust erosion ×1
- ⚖️ Corporate accountability ×1
- 🪨 Blue Texas ×1
- 🪨 Polls are inaccurate ×1
- 🪨 The old way was better ×1
- ⚖️ Cruel and unusual ×1
- 🕵️ Broken electoral math ×1
- 🕵️ Polls are manipulated ×1
- 🕵️ Bread and circuses ×1
- 🕵️ Guillotine ×1
- 📜 The new dark ages ×1
- 🕵️ Shy Tory ×1
- 🗣️ Do you condemn? ×1
🧩 And then
the bar on the same scale as the first
👯 Tells the most alike
the shows that tell the same motifs in much the same proportions, and the ones that least do; each colored by the show's lean, our loose grouping by reputation
- leans left
- center
- leans right
- not grouped by lean
👯 Most alike
the shows whose motifs overlap most with its own, whatever their lean; the bar is how alike (100%: the same motifs in the same proportions)
🙃 Least alike
the shows with the least in common with it; the bar is how alike, on the same scale
🎙️ Lately on the show
its latest claims, in our words, with their motifs
- 2026-11-05 “Democrats are unlikely to win a statewide race in Texas.”
🧩 Blue Texas - 2026-11-05 “The Supreme Court decision on voting rights has caused a surge in Black voter turnout.”
🧩 Sleeping giant - 2026-11-03 “Rural white voters are underrepresented in polls because they are difficult to reach.”
🧩 Polls are inaccurate 🧩 Shy Tory - 2026-11-03 “Alaska's ranked choice voting system is designed to elect Democrats.”
🧩 Broken electoral math - 2026-11-03 “Polls are often used to influence outcomes rather than predict them.”
🧩 Polls are manipulated - 2026-11-03 “Democrats orchestrated a campaign for a fake Dan Sullivan to confuse voters.”
🧩 Ratf*cking 🧩 Spoiler candidate - 2026-11-03 “Democrats recruited a second Dan Sullivan to deceive Alaska voters and manipulate the Senate race.”
🧩 Ratf*cking 🧩 Spoiler candidate - 2026-11-03 “A fake Dan Sullivan ended up on the Alaska ballot.”
🧩 Ratf*cking 🧩 Spoiler candidate - 2026-11-03 “Democrats in Alaska recruited a Republican to run against another Republican to manipulate ranked choice voting.”
🧩 Ratf*cking 🧩 Spoiler candidate - 2026-11-03 “El-Sayed failed to condemn a gross and anti-Semitic advertisement.”
🧩 Do you condemn? - 2026-11-03 “Polls as snapshots are less useful than looking at polling as data points in trends.”
🧩 A snapshot, not a prediction - 2026-10-29 “The Department of Justice is being used as a political tool to target Trump's opponents.”
🧩 Lawfare - 2026-10-27 “Daniel J. Sullivan is attempting to confuse voters by using the same name and party affiliation as Senator Dan Sullivan.”
🧩 Spoiler candidate - 2026-10-22 “Senator Elissa Slotkin wants to deter young people from working for the Trump administration through the threat of prosecution.”
🧩 Intimidation 🧩 Lawfare - 2026-10-22 “Alyssa Slotkin intends to use the law to intimidate people from working in a Trump administration.”
🧩 Intimidation 🧩 Lawfare - 2026-10-22 “A billionaire received a Trump pardon after his family gave Alina Habba a $50 million deal.”
🧩 Selling indulgences 🧩 Pay to play - 2026-10-22 “A billionaire's family gave Alina Habba a $50 million deal because he wanted a Trump pardon.”
🧩 Selling indulgences 🧩 Pay to play - 2026-10-13 “American society is said to be breaking down: a psychic breakdown beyond any policy question, and a sense of disorder that feels worse every year.”
🧩 Social trust erosion - 2026-10-13 “A firing squad is a more humane and effective method of execution than lethal injection.”
🧩 The old way was better 🧩 Cruel and unusual 🧩 Guillotine - 2026-10-13 “Public executions do not deter violence but instead ignite public bloodlust.”
🧩 Bread and circuses 🧩 The new dark ages - 2026-10-08 “Energy producers' extraction of fossil fuels has caused global climate change and subsequent injury to people in Boulder.”
🧩 Corporate accountability - 2026-10-08 “Justice Alito's own account of originalism is said to give a formula for twisting it toward the results he thinks right.”
🧩 Original meaning - 2026-10-06 “An originalist framework allows for looking at the structure and design of the Constitution even when a principle is not explicitly in the text.”
🧩 Original meaning