In his generous review of my book, Charles Lee helpfully illuminates its central argument—that mainstream discourse must be taken seriously as an arena of political struggle for groups and organizations attempting to challenge longstanding arrangements of power and privilege. However, while Lee is convinced that mainstream discourse is an important site of struggle, he worries that it is overstating the matter to claim that it is the decisive arena of contestation for political challengers. In articulating his concern, he suggests that there are several considerations that might cause me to reconsider the central role of mainstream discourse and its power to influence common sense in my analysis.

First, he asks whether I might be weighting news discourse too heavily in my analysis. There is, after all, no hard and fast separation between the political and social spheres in people’s lived experience. Lee is certainly correct to point this out. There is no hard line between culture and politics and it is absolutely the case that as the political fight for marriage equality was building, so too was the cultural visibility of gay people. However, the political frames that the marriage movement used (e.g., “love makes a family”) easily translated to and are regularly deployed in popular culture. The blockbuster success and wide influence of shows like Will and Grace shaped the cultural landscape and frame of mind of a generation and made an issue that might once have seemed unfathomable entirely relatable. This is exactly why resonant frames are so powerful—they can reshape our understanding of the way things are or ought to be across domains, changing our political opinions because they have changed the doxa in which we weigh our decisions.

Second, Lee worries that my focus on mainstream discourse might obfuscate the ways that movements can and must tailor different frames to different audiences. Similarly, he notes that intersectional movements—those that are seeking to redress several overlapping oppressions—might find it difficult to communicate with one voice about a single concern. I can only concede that Lee’s worries are entirely founded. It is difficult to communicate consistently across audiences and to communicate clearly across domains of oppression. This difficulty arises not only from issues of coordination and consciousness, but also from the deep questions about justice that each movement must consider. However, this difficulty does not nullify the fact that coherence is a condition of resonant discourse. Also, it is important to note that every conversation has levels. While I argue that movements must capture the top-line conversation with their most decisive arguments, it is also important to understand that we can tell the strength of a frame’s resonance by how many arguments are so tightly correlated that when one is spoken, another is simultaneously invoked. This means that the most successful arguments are also nuanced. Resonant frames invoke an umbrella idea that simultaneously brings to mind several others, which one has come to see as related. For example, we can see this kind of complexity in the resonance of the frames being deployed for the Movement for Black Lives. Yes, #blacklivesmatter, but we must also acknowledge the intersectional oppression of black women and #sayhername. Yes, #blacklivesmatter, but we must also understand the part that the carceral state plays in the “war against black people,” and consider #prisonabolition.

Third, Lee wonders whether my idea of “success” is too narrow. Perhaps movements ought to be judged, not by the impact that they have on politics and society writ large, but instead on whether they fulfill their own goals and change the lives of the individuals involved. I agree that there are numerous ways to act politically and not all of these actions must be directed at the state to have important effects. However, it is my view that although it is admirable to seek to change one’s own life, it is not political unless one means to generalize those effects in some way.

Lee’s final concern is the most serious, because it is rooted in the suspicion that political acceptance is overdetermined. The argument goes thus: perhaps marriage equality succeeded in re-writing American politics because what the movement sought wasn’t transformative of power relations and could be easily assimilated into bourgeois and nationalist ways of being. As commentary on the marriage equality movement, this is simply true. The movement didn’t overturn the norms of bourgeois family and ideas of capital, or trouble notions of national belonging. However, I would argue that because marriage equality didn’t have a radical politics, it does not follow that no movement with radical politics could be politically accepted. I would argue that the Movement for Black Lives, which sees itself as radical, is on the cusp of political acceptance. It is a movement that does seek to trouble bourgeois ideas of respectability, capital, and belonging. And it has already begun to reshape our politics in at least one domain—criminal justice. Whether the changes the movement wins will go as deep as those envisioned in its platform is an open question. The point of The Politics of Common Sense is not to play favorites with movements or to champion reformism or radicalism. Rather, it is to remind both scholars and activists that if one wants to have political effect, it is not enough to be right or well-organized: you must make an argument that resonates as well.