symptom vs. disease

 Don't confuse the symptom (like a giant pus-filled pimple) with the disease. The cure for the latter likely involves constructive adaptation to the new speed at which ideas can be replicated across the globe electronically.

what narrative to chose

This depends on the audience. An audience equipped to work toward a healthy future might be better served with balanced narratives, allowing them to make decisions based on their own interests. Such narratives are likely to focus on demographic information and on incoming data (often statistical) about processes afoot. 

If you instead want to decide for (e.g. to simply manipulate) an audience, your narrative should be one-sided and focus on personalities or organism-centric anecdote i.e. on paleolithic triggers like fear, "bad-guys", and xenophobia. In this electronic information age, the gullibility of audiences to these strategies has proven itself again and again, from the invention of radio in the early 20th century through to today's internet of social media.

cartoon obsession

Leadership concepts evolved in modest-sized groups and communities, but modern communications extends them to larger communities where leadership becomes a media figment rather than a relationship. 

The mismatch is especially apparent in election years, because figment promotion eclipses the statistical  process challenges that are hitting our communities where it hurts.  

Hence discussion of mindfulness, measurement, and mitigation of the latter might be worth a bit more attention, even if there is a windfall in money for cartoons.