Monday, November 26, 2012

Political Parties and Branding

Branding has come to occupy an interesting role in Late Capitalism, particularly in the constitution of the “global,” often providing a key linkage between the local and the global. Branding constructs a formidable international terror syndicate out of a ragtag collection of disparate local activist groups; it creates the impression of cultural homogenization and modernization despite an immense amount of global variation; it allows for the functioning of an international legal discourse (that of “human rights”) and value system (the spread of “democracy”) that can be strategically manipulated in different situations. In the U.S. (and probably elsewhere?), it also shapes party politics and the bodies of rhetoric that political parties regulate.

American democracy is not a system whereby citizens choose from a collection of representatives associated with an innumerable spectrum of viewpoints. Generally there are one or two viable candidates, and voters often base their decisions on party affiliations. For example, a person who agrees with much of the Republican Party platform (thus self-identifying as a Republican) will assume that any Republican politician represents the Republican “brand.” This obviously encourages people to vote for candidates without knowing anything about them other than their party affiliations (witness the election to U.S. congress of a man who believes he is Santa Claus). It also creates an extremely black-and-white environment for thinking about and discussing politics. But, finally, it allows for a certain degree of control over such thought and discussion on the part of party leaders, as brand loyalty makes particular arguments and ideologies easier to sell to the base.

And so political parties are a terrain on which a constant struggle plays out. Different interest groups attempt to wrest control over the messaging of the party, in order to cement their viewpoints as hegemonic. It is interesting to observe, for example, the different wings of the Republican Party that overlap with and diverge from each other based on religious loyalties, commitment to libertarian values, and the evangelical zeal of American Exceptionalism. It appears that the faction of the Party that recently came to control the messaging was too extreme to engage a majority of the American public, and now there is in-fighting and finger-pointing in the aftermath of the election. The Republican Party is trying to figure out how to re-brand itself in order to increase its appeal. Which ties into the second form of struggle: the relationship with the public at large. Political rhetoric has to be carefully calibrated to both “sell” the party and its ideology (i.e. to appeal to the market) and simultaneously influence public opinion, by providing the language with which various issues are discussed. It is the changing dynamic among powerful interest groups and their relationship to different segments of the American population that accounts for shifts in party ideology and demographic composition. Of course, one must account for the fact that political parties and campaigns are composed of people with external aims (economic, social, geopolitical) AND those whose primary goal is to win elections. The latter are all too willing to adopt any messaging that is strategically useful.

One characteristic of branding that very aptly describes the American political scene is its ability to alter perception. People believe they are getting what the marketing tells them they are getting, especially if it is popular. In the U.S., it does not matter what a political party actually does when it acquires power. People believe the messaging over the reality. In fact, their view of reality is distorted by the branding. People believe that Republicans are more fiscally responsible, even though that is not the case. They believe that Democrats are friendlier to minorities and the poor, even though that also is not the case. Even more fundamentally, branding creates the illusion of distinction. People don’t realize that Orbit gum is really the same as Eclipse, and both are owned by the same parent company. Just as they don’t realize that Democrat is, in actual practice, the same as Republican, and both are owned by the same parent company.

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