In the early days of my television career I worked at a very small independent station and had to learn to do a lot of things. It was a vastly superior education than the one I had received at university. I was fortunate enough to learn from men whose broadcasting credentials reached all the way back into the glory days of network radio. They were both patient and allowed me to make my share of mistakes and learn from them.

One of my first assignments was to write and edit promotional spots. Here my mentor was the corporate programmer and passed on this bit of sage advice. Never assume that the rest of the public shares your interests or tastes and never assume that your successes are an indication that you know what you’re doing. That last bit confused the crap out of me.

He explained, “I’ve been at this for 30 years and sometimes people will watch shows for reasons I never thought of. Sometimes they watch in spite of what I think.”

In 2013 NBC aired a live presentation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music to great ratings success but fundamentally misunderstood the reasons people watched. Instead of seeing it as a combination of bankable star and beloved show, they (and their competitors) just thought it could be replicated by any Broadway show as long as it was presented live. They were wrong.

And so it is with politics. As we run up to 2020 are people buying what the major factions are selling?   Are you buying socialism? A return to “normalcy?” A continuation of Trump? Or are you buying something for totally different reasons?