Viral Realism Advantage

Classical realist arguments about power and survival gain disproportionate public traction when packaged into viral media moments (lectures, clips, tweets), enabling an intellectual doctrine traditionally confined to elites to anchor popular foreign‑policy debates. That attention economy effect can shift policy agendas toward power politics—trade defensiveness, supply‑chain nationalism, military hedging—without equivalent changes in formal institutions. — If viral dynamics routinely amplify realist frames, democracies will see durable shifts in foreign‑policy priorities and public tolerance for coercive state measures driven more by attention flows than by formal institutional deliberation.