The stories we tell ourselves, especially the ones we tend to repeat over and over and that circulate throughout our political and cultural discourses, matter. They impact us. They carve neural pathways, so to speak, in our collective cultural mindset, in our political nervous system. They set expectations for us about the future, map out and set the course for our imagination of possibilities, preparing us for, priming us to accept, some future outcomes more than others. In this sense, they can make us feel powerful and hopeful or demoralized, powerless, and anxious.
