🧩 The motif map
The aisle: the stories each side tells
- 1013motifs the shows told
- 497told on both sides
- 156answers across the aisle
⚠️ Stories people tell, not claims that they're true.
Each dot is a motif from our index: the shape of a story as people tell it. It sits left or right by which side's shows said it in their own voice, a host or a guest (told, reported or argued against: we don't yet mark which; clips a show played and callers aren't counted), and higher the more it was told. An arc joins a story to its usual answer.
📏 The divide, week by week
how far apart the two sides' stories are; 0 = no more than chance
Each week (Tuesday to Monday) we compare the mix of motifs the hosts and guests of left-leaning shows said with the mix on right-leaning shows, and take away how far apart the same shows look when split into two sides at random. 0 means no further apart than shows picked at random; the higher, the more each side tells its own stories. Weeks only: a single day has too few tellings to tell apart from chance. Tap a week for its stories below.
🧮 The measure, technically
The divide is the Jensen–Shannon divergence (in bits) between the left-leaning and right-leaning shows' motif mixes for the week, less its average over 500 shuffles of the same whole shows between the two sides (as many left shows as there were). The grey band is those shuffles' 5th to 95th percentile, less their average. A motif is "mostly" one side's by its weighted log-odds (Monroe, Colaresi and Quinn), said by at least two of that side's shows; "both sides alike" means at least two shows on each side and no clear lean. The methods log has the rest.
each week's most one-sided stories and those both sides told alike; the bars: how often each side's hosts and guests told it that week, 🫏 left to the left, right to the right 🐘
- 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
🗓️ Oct 1–5: 0.16 apart, from 406 tellings on 13 left shows and 434 on 18 right shows (partial transcripts).
🫏 Mostly on the left
⚖️ Said on both sides alike
🐘 Mostly on the right
🗓️ Oct 6–12: 0.24 apart, from 705 tellings on 17 left shows and 876 on 22 right shows (partial transcripts).
🫏 Mostly on the left
⚖️ Said on both sides alike
- 📜Political party surge
- 🎭Not playing with a full deck
- 📜Political realignment
- 📜Backfiring policy
- 🕵️The fundamentals
🐘 Mostly on the right
🗓️ Oct 13–19: 0.21 apart, from 744 tellings on 17 left shows and 937 on 21 right shows (partial transcripts).
🫏 Mostly on the left
⚖️ Said on both sides alike
- 🪨Candidate quality
- 🕵️It's the economy, stupid
- 📜Political party surge
- 📜Political realignment
- 📜Losing the base
🐘 Mostly on the right
🗓️ Oct 20–26: 0.23 apart, from 774 tellings on 17 left shows and 1157 on 22 right shows.
🫏 Mostly on the left
- 🎭Senile leader
- 📜Executive overreach
- 🕵️Kleptocracy
- 📜Whose side are you on anyway?
- 📜Abandoning an ally
⚖️ Said on both sides alike
🐘 Mostly on the right
🗓️ Oct 27–Nov 2: 0.24 apart, from 651 tellings on 18 left shows and 1084 on 21 right shows.
🫏 Mostly on the left
⚖️ Said on both sides alike
🐘 Mostly on the right
🗓️ Nov 3–9: 0.14 apart, from 626 tellings on 18 left shows and 946 on 22 right shows.
🫏 Mostly on the left
⚖️ Said on both sides alike
- 🕵️It's the economy, stupid
- 🕵️The war hits your wallet
- 📜Referendum on the president
- 🪨Electability
- 🪨Blue Texas
🐘 Mostly on the right
🧩 Who tells what
the motifs on the map, ranked, in pairs; each 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:
- Exhortationsa call to act
🔥 Rising this week
told at least twice as often in the last 7 days as in the 7 before; the bar is this week
- 📜 Unpopular war 22 → 55
- 🎭 Passing the buck 21 → 44
- 📜 Distancing 9 → 28
- 📜 Honey trap 3 → 27
- 📜 Glad he's dead 0 → 27
- 📜 Political retaliation 11 → 24
- 🪨 Extinction-level event 4 → 24
- 📜 The family business 9 → 23
- 📜 Exploring a run 4 → 19
- 📜 Data center panic 7 → 19
- 🪨 Political theater 3 → 19
- 🪨 No heir 6 → 19
🧊 Fading
told a third as often or less this week; the bar is the week before
- 📜 Ratf*cking 192 → 6
- 📜 Spoiler candidate 192 → 4
- 📜 Confusion candidate 186 → 5
- 🕵️ Voter fraud 47 → 6
- 🕵️ They're going to steal it 41 → 13
- 🪨 Polls are inaccurate 38 → 7
- 🪨 Candidate quality 37 → 11
- 🎭 Brotherhood candidate 36 → 2
- 🎭 Crooked 33 → 1
- 📜 Breaking ranks 32 → 4
- 🪨 Big Mo 32 → 2
- 📜 Lied on a form 31 → 2
🫏 Mostly left
most of the shows that said it lean left; the bar is how many told it
🐘 Mostly right
most of the shows that said it lean right; the bar is how many told it
⚖️ Told on both sides
said on left and right shows; the bar is the smaller side
- 📜 Political party surge 🫏 15 · 17 🐘
- 🕵️ It's the economy, stupid 🫏 14 · 14 🐘
- 🪨 Electability 🫏 14 · 14 🐘
- 🕵️ The war hits your wallet 🫏 14 · 14 🐘
- 📜 Losing the base 🫏 15 · 13 🐘
- 🪨 Big Mo 🫏 13 · 13 🐘
- 🗣️ The buck stops here 🫏 12 · 12 🐘
- 📜 Intimidation 🫏 12 · 13 🐘
- 📜 Lawfare 🫏 12 · 19 🐘
- 🕵️ Enthusiasm gap 🫏 12 · 16 🐘
- 🪨 Blue Texas 🫏 11 · 15 🐘
- 📜 Political infighting 🫏 11 · 14 🐘
🎯 Only in the center
said on 2 or more center shows and never heard on a left, right or crossover show, not even in a clip; the bar is how many shows
579 more motifs were told only online, by fact-checkers or by voters, or came up on the shows only in clips and calls: they're in the index.