Steve Sampson

Writer, learner, husband, father, mission-driven marketer. Founder of Better Word Partners.

[Steve Sampson @stsampson]

Whenever I need to keep calm, I think of this … Pirlo's 'Panenka penalty' - Italy v England https://t.co/6CYgV8xLjC via @YouTube

[Steve Sampson @stsampson]

He Plagiarized and Promoted Falsehoods. The White House Embraces Him. (Because That’s Obviously the Point.) https://t.co/kokf61KpXR via @NYTimes

[Steve Sampson @stsampson]

A lesson I learned from the smartest person I’ve ever known: The struggle to write is the struggle to think (which is why we all need to keep doing it) https://t.co/6jp9AFesN9

[Steve Sampson @stsampson]

When your team warns you not to be an idiot, but you know you got “OPSEC” game …

[David Folkenflik @davidfolkenflik]

News: NPR’s Tom Bowman reports of a Pentagon-wide warning about Signal’s security vulnerability - one week ago 👇🏼

[Steve Sampson @stsampson]

The truth according to Grok …

[Boston Smalls @smalls2672]

Fun fact of the day. Since Jan 1989 51.5 million jobs have been created.

50 million of them came under democrat leadership.

https://t.co/K9DVTqBQ88

[Steve Sampson @stsampson]

What could possibly be wrong with this? https://t.co/xCd6M6e6Ec

[Steve Sampson @stsampson]

There were no other viable options.

[Rutger Bregman @rcbregman]

We knew it, but seeing the data laid out – it's still shocking: higher taxes for most, deep cuts to Medicaid & SNAP—all to fund tax breaks for the top 1%.

It's difficult to fully grasp the scale of the con being perpetrated on Americans right now by the Trump administration.

[Mark Warner @MarkWarner]

Behind the headlines of mass layoffs, there are thousands of people with families, bills, and responsibilities that suddenly have their lives turned upside down because of this insane political stunt.

Today, I want to share a few of their stories.

[Ezra Klein @ezraklein]

A few thoughts from the conversations I’ve been having and hearing over the last week:

The hard question isn’t the 2 points that would’ve decided the election. It’s how to build a Democratic Party that isn’t always 2 points away from losing to Donald Trump — or worse.

The Democratic Party is supposed to represent the working class. If it isn’t doing that, it is failing. That’s true even even if it can still win elections.

Democrats don’t need to build a new informational ecosystem. Dems need to show up in the informational ecosystems that already exist. They need to be natural and enthusiastic participants in these cultures. Harris should’ve gone on Rogan, but the damage here was done over years and wouldn’t have been reversed in one October appearance.

Building a media ecosystem isn’t something you do through nonprofit grants or rich donors (remember Air America?). Joe Rogan and Theo Von aren’t a Koch-funded psy-op. What makes these spaces matter is that they aren’t built on politics. (Democrats already win voters who pay close attention to politics.)

That there’s more affinity between Democrats and the Cheneys than Democrats and the Rogans and Theo Vons of the world says a lot.

Economic populism is not just about making your economic policy more and more redistributive. People care about fairness. They admire success. People have economic identities in addition to material needs.

Trump — and in a different way, Musk — understand the identity side of this. What they share isn’t that they are rich and successful, it’s that they made themselves into the public’s idea of what it means to be rich and successful.

Policy matters, but it has to be real to the candidate. Policy is a way candidates tell voters who they are. But people can tell what politicians really care about and what they’re mouthing because it polls well.

Governing matters. If housing is more affordable, and homelessness far less of a crisis, in Texas and Florida than California and New York, that’s a *huge* problem.

If people are leaving California and New York for Texas and Florida, that’s a *huge* problem.

Democrats need to take seriously how much scarcity harms them. Housing scarcity became a core Trump-Vance argument against immigrants. Too little clean energy becomes the argument for rapidly building out more fossil fuels. A successful liberalism needs to believe in *and deliver* abundance of the things people need most.

That Democrats aren’t trusted on the cost of living harmed them much more than any ad. If Dems want to “Sister Soulja” some part of their coalition, start with the parts that have made it so much more expensive to build and live where Democrats govern.

More than a “Sister Soulja” moment, Democrats need to rebuild a culture of saying no inside their own coalition.

Democrats don’t just have to move right or left. They need to better reflect the texture of worlds they’ve lost touch with and those worlds are complex and contradictory.

The most important question in politics isn’t whether a politician is well liked. It’s whether voters think a politician — or a political coalition — likes them.

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

On Veterans Day, we owe our veterans and their families our thanks, our respect, and our freedom. To all those who bravely served, thank you for your service to our country.

[Adam Grant @AdamMGrant]

My new favorite word: sonder.

It's the profound awareness that every person you encounter has experienced a lifetime of hopes, fears, loves, and heartaches that you'll never know.

Each moment of sonder is a reminder to appreciate how little we truly grasp about others' lives.

[Steve Sampson @stsampson]

Facts.

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

The Economist is endorsing Kamala Harris. By making Donald Trump leader of the free world, Americans would gamble with the economy, the rule of law and international peace. Voters who minimise the risks are deluding themselves https://t.co/gRfh5Kg4fe 👇

[Graham Murphy @greymurph]

If the economy is the top issue for voters, this should be the top headline across the country. Instead, it’s buried by literal talk of garbage.

[Steve Sampson @stsampson]

Those of us who have lived in the DMV our whole lives know what a big crowd looks like ⬇️

[Alexis Wainwright @AWainwrightTV]

A sea of people along the monument watching VP Kamala Harris speech tonight after the rally reached capacity on site of The Ellipse.

[Adam Grant @AdamMGrant]

Abusive bosses don't drive performance. They undermine it.

471 studies, 149k people, 36 countries: in aggressive workplaces, we do poorer work, collaborate less, and shirk more. Incivility breaks confidence and breeds resentment.

The best way to get results is to show respect.

[Steve Sampson @stsampson]

@jayrosen_nyu A big thank-you to you for continuing to try to teach people this crucially important point.

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

“America is experiencing the world’s strongest post-pandemic economic recovery,” writes @BharatRamamurti. Kamala Harris would “build on recent progress and boost the growth and dynamism of the American economy”, he argues https://t.co/OJ9qK0NFZ9

[JMU Football @JMUFootball]

Some dawgs 😤

#GoDukes