The Realignment – Episode 560

Nancy Scola: How to Win the New Ideas War in Washington

Released: July 10, 2025 | Host: Marshall Kosloff | Guest: Nancy Scola

Episode Overview

In this episode of The Realignment, host Marshall Kosloff welcomes journalist and political writer Nancy Scola for a deep-dive into the mechanics of how ideas gain traction, are contested, and succeed or die in Washington, D.C.'s ever-shifting landscape. The conversation draws on recent political moments—the New York City mayoral primary, the trek of antitrust reform, and the evolving balance between legacy and alternative media—to explore how debates over policy, power, and personalities play out among policymakers, wonks, the media, and the broader political ecosystem.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Flow of Ideas in Washington

• Nancy Scola's Lens: Ideas in D.C. are initiated, seeded, and either thrive, die, or evolve based on many factors: the topic, personalities, political moment, and media context.

  “How do ideas get started, seeded into the public discussion...What ideas thrive, what ideas die, and what are the various factors that fit into each of those situations?”
  —Nancy Scola [03:16]

• Role of Individuals: Sometimes, entirely new paradigms are introduced by unlikely figures (e.g., Lina Khan with antitrust reform).

2. Case Study: Lina Khan and Consistency in Power

• Khan's Rise: Marshall highlights Lina Khan as an exemplar—her “big idea” on antitrust reform moved from academic circle to institutional power.
• Scola on Sources: She emphasizes three factors that make people influential and valuable as sources: credentials, consistency, and relatability.

  “She was credentialed...Every time she was asked about these topics that she made her name on, she gave coherent explanations in consistent ways.”
  —Nancy Scola [05:59]

3. Alternative vs. Legacy Media in Shaping Policy and Ideas

• Media Ecosystem Reality Check: Despite alt-media’s prominence (podcasts, YouTube, etc.) and declining legacy TV ratings, legacy platforms remain crucial for D.C. insiders and policy debates.

• Empirical vs. Ideological Analysis: Dismissing legacy media as “dead“ is presented as an ideological rather than empirical error.

  “My biggest beef with all sides...is it's so ideological. It is an ideological, non-empirical statement that you don't matter anymore.”
  —Marshall Kosloff [12:56]

• Media Functions Differ: Alternative media is great for activating new/demographic audiences—less effective for the granular, power-centered policy debates that drive actual decision-making in government.

4. How Power Actually Operates: The Weakness of "Alternative" Analysis

• The Gap: Alt-media rarely dives into how policy is implemented or how power flows through bureaucracies, appointments, and legal structures—issues that traditional beat reporting excels at.
• Case Example: The “all in” podcast advocated stapling green cards to diplomas, but lacked policy power analysis—thus, despite winning “the debate” on-air, they lost out in actual government action.

  “They don't have a strong focus on power and how it actually operates... Who is Trump going to appoint... To what degree...going to be focused on these very procedural issues?”
  —Marshall Kosloff [19:27]

5. Panels, Conferences, and Thought Diversity

• Evolution of Elites’ Debate: Scola notes the emergence of “mono-panels” (everyone agrees) at D.C. events, driven by corporate/think-tank sponsors shying from dissent, reducing real debate space.

  “We now have the rise of the mono panel ... a lot of these conference sessions are people with the exact same viewpoint...”
  —Nancy Scola [17:38]

6. Policy Factionalism on the Left: Abundance, Antitrust, and More

• Nuanced Factions: Left-wing policy debates—whether over “abundance” (Ezra Klein/Derek Thompson), antitrust (Lina Khan/Zephyr Teachout), or “degrowth”—are more internally fractured than they appear.

  “There is no such thing as the left. There are like three or four different parts of the left.”
  —Marshall Kosloff [27:52]

• Timing and Reception Matters: Klein/Thompson’s “abundance” project would have been received differently pre- vs post-2024 election, as the Democratic coalition’s makeup and priorities shifted.

• Gender Dynamics: Scola observes the newest antitrust leaders are largely women, reshaping a traditionally male-dominated field—and reacting defensively against perceived “bigfooting” by the abundance crew.

7. Sticky Ideas & Policy Entrepreneurship

• Stickiness and Branding Matter: Regardless of prior academic work on “implementation,” “abundance” as a branding framework “sticks” in D.C., and that stickiness is crucial for gaining traction.

  “Abundance is a sticky idea because now when I go back to D.C. to talk about abundance, people, everyone's like, oh, yeah, like abundance. It's that thing.”
  —Marshall Kosloff [42:56]

8. Fusionism and the Development of Coalitions

• Right vs. Left on Coalition-Building: The right is historically more comfortable holding divergent priorities together—via “fusionism” or the “three-legged stool”—while the left often seeks single frameworks, which can lead to public fissures when new ideas (like abundance) emerge.

  "The left does not have a fusionist instinct at all...The problem for the left is that you'd have to have like a ten-legged stool."
  —Marshall Kosloff [47:09]

9. What’s Up and What’s Down? Ideas in Flux

• Trade Policy: Post-Covid, bipartisan enthusiasm for “reshoring” is giving way to renewed calls for more global trade as new factions react to recent tariffs and “Liberation Day.”

  “It was very easy to say after Covid. We've come to a new bipartisan consensus that our supply chains are too brittle...Now...we need to be much, much, much more trade friendly.”
  —Marshall Kosloff [55:04]

• Money & Crypto: There’s growing mainstream attention to digital money, prediction markets, and stablecoins, with both parties opening up to new financial tools.

  “The one that is, you know, on the upswing is the idea of money, rethinking the nature of money....That seems really on the upswing in Trump’s Washington...”
  —Nancy Scola [57:12]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Credentials and Consistency:

  “When I'm looking for a source...credentials matter still in Washington...every time she was asked about these topics...she gave coherent explanations in consistent ways.”
  —Nancy Scola [05:59]

• On Podcasting’s Strengths and Weaknesses:

  “The big issue with the way the alternative media debates these issues is...they...just really lack the real focus on what's actually happening, which is where legacy media and traditional journalism with sources is so good at doing.”
  —Marshall Kosloff [22:48]

• On Ideas That Stick:

  “If you do not find...a sticky framework...you are trying to influence the policy debate...you need to have a sticky framework. Because DC, as you know, is just covered in ideas and covered with people who are selling their ideas.”
  —Marshall Kosloff [42:57]

• On Gender and Policy Domains:

  “Antitrust as a project...is very male dominated...the leaders you saw emerging...they tended to be women...and then people came in and said, okay, that's not the way of thinking about the world.”
  —Nancy Scola [36:23]

• On the Ever-Shifting Landscape:

  “...the fun part for me...is it all matters...it's really hard to parcel with that. That's the fun part, right? It is the policy. It is the personalities. It is what's trending, what's up and, and what's down.”
  —Nancy Scola [61:48]

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Subject / Insight | |-----------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:16 | Scola defines “idea flow” in Washington & why ideas matter | | 05:59 | What makes a source (and idea) credible and sticky | | 10:55 | The limits of new/alt vs. legacy media in DC power dynamics | | 15:17 | Why podcasts rarely shape actual policy debates | | 17:38 | Evolution of debates: rise of "mono-panels" | | 27:52 | Explaining left’s internal factions and power struggles | | 36:23 | Gender, power, and perceptions in antitrust and policy spaces | | 42:56 | The importance of "stickiness" in policy debates | | 47:09 | Fusionism, coalition-building, and the right/left differences | | 55:04 | Example: Trade policy’s rise and fall | | 57:12 | Crypto/money as an ascendant policy topic | | 61:48 | How personalities, ideas, and trends all shape outcomes |

Final Thoughts & Closing

Nancy Scola and Marshall Kosloff conclude that the war over ideas is as much about branding, power, and institutional gates as it is about the substance. The flow of ideas—through legacy media, alternative media, and increasingly networked social spaces—remains fundamentally dynamic, and the “marketplace of ideas” in D.C. is always in flux.

Memorable Closing

“...it is constantly changing...there's always the possibility that the new idea takes hold, that something, you know, something's tried and failed, something's tried and succeeded. Like, that, to me, is still, still worth investing in, being a part of.”
—Nancy Scola [61:48]

For anyone interested in how ideas become policy, and the subtle levers that decide what takes root in Washington, this episode is a rich, nuanced explainer.