Don't Talk About Politics + Creator Content is AI Search Infrastructure

Ryan sits down with Sarah Stein Lubrano, author of Don’t Talk About Politics: Changing 21st Century Minds, to break down what drives persuasion. Plus, how creators get you into chatbot responses.

Ryan Davis, People First, and Sarah Stein Lubrano

Apr 29, 2026

Hey,

There are just 188 days until the November elections! If you haven’t figured out your creator strategy, now’s the time.

In this edition, I have a great conversation with Sarah Stein Lubrano on her fascinating book Don’t Talk About Politics. The team also looks at how creator content can get your organization into chatbot responses.

If you’re headed to Netroots Nation in Philly this year, stay tuned. We’ll have a happy hour announcement in the next edition.

Thanks for reading,

Ryan
Founder & CEO
People First

🎧 Don’t Talk About Politics

In this episode of Influencer Impact, Ryan sits down with Sarah Stein Lubrano to unpack her recent book, Don’t Talk About Politics: Changing 21st Century Minds, and what the science actually says about political persuasion. The conversation moves past the usual “change minds with facts” framing and into what actually works: identity, trust, and social context. They get into how that shows up in real communications work, especially for campaigns and organizations trying to reach fragmented audiences. Creators come into the picture as people already embedded in communities, showing up as authentic voices rather than institutional messengers.

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Listen above, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Sarah brings a deep, lived perspective, with a background in feminist and mutual aid organizing, teaching in prisons, and academic training with a PhD from the University of Oxford and a Master’s from the University of Cambridge. Her work extends through the Sense and Solidarity Initiative and the Future Narratives Lab, and she’s previously served as Head of Content at The School of Life. Check out more of her work on Instagram, Substack, and Bluesky.

Creator Content is AI Search Infrastructure

This NOTUS piece on AI chatbots and the 2026 election captures a real concern. Campaigns know voters are going to ask tools like ChatGPT and Claude for information, and that influencing those answers feels opaque.

However, there is a more clear path forward than NOTUS suggests.

Over the past few months, analyses from Semrush, Peec AI, and Profound have looked at what sources show up inside AI-generated answers. The same mix appears consistently: YouTube, Reddit, LinkedIn, and other community platforms are cited far more often than brand or campaign websites, especially for explanatory queries.

That makes sense with how these systems work. They assemble responses from content that is already written in clear, structured language and directly answers a question. Material that can be easily parsed and reused tends to surface more than formal messaging or static site copy.

This is where creator content becomes relevant in a different way. Long-form YouTube videos that explain a topic, LinkedIn posts that walk through a specific point of view, and Reddit threads that compare options or share experience all map closely to what these systems pull from.

There are some consistent patterns. On YouTube, longer videos with clear titles, descriptions, and transcripts are cited more often than short-form content. On LinkedIn, posts that offer concrete expertise or explain something specific show up more than general brand messaging. On Reddit, straightforward answers written in plain language appear regularly, even without high engagement.

For campaigns and advocacy groups, if your content exists across the platforms these systems rely on, you have a path into the answers LLMs generate. If it doesn’t, it likely won’t appear.

That points toward a distributed approach. Work with creators who can explain issues clearly, produce content that is structured enough to be reused, and build a presence across the environments where this material is already being created and referenced. The goal is being present in the content that gets pulled into an answer.