“Sometimes I Think The Narrative Is A Great, Grey God…”

The “Trump is definitely gonna win” tone of two months ago was embarrassing. The “Biden’s got this” tone after the SOTU was embarrassing. The amount to which coverage shifts every two weeks based on the whims of individual poll….embarrassing!!

— Astead (@AsteadWH) April 24, 2024

Ppl ask if I miss writing (I do) but my desire to get out of this type of narrative cycle was much greater than my need to write. Imo, audio can better highlight the stakes of an election w/ nuance partly because we’re untied to day to day horse race discourse

— Astead (@AsteadWH) January 23, 2024

Confessions of an NYT political reporter.

The narrative is the fox being chased by the baying hounds, who never catch it, even after the hunt is over. And yet the Narrative is all, and must never be forsaken or questioned.

Honestly, reading political coverage in a Presidential election year is like that scene from 1984 where the enemy and ally switch places in mid-speech, and no one notices.