Some years ago, I was fortunate enough to become friends with a legendary figure in the music biz, producer/manager of one of greatest rock bands of all time. Lest I be accused of name-dropping, I won’t mention his name here; suffice it to say that if I asked you to name the top five rock groups of all time, the group he managed would definitely be one of the five.
He had a preternatural talent for sensing what would appeal to an audience. I forget exactly what the context was at the time, but one day he said to me: “It’s not really big unless you can dress up to it.” He was a stylish Londoner with a phenomenal eye for fashion, so this wasn’t surprising coming from him, but years later, when watching footage of the first Tea Party gatherings on Long Island here in New York, his words really hit home, albeit in an unexpected context.
The Tea Party movement arose when the Republican Party was at its nadir; it was 2009, Obama had won resoundingly and, after eight years of Bush/Cheney (followed by a lackluster Presidential candidate in the person of John McCain), America was ready for a change. After McCain’s defeat in 2008, all the energy was on the Democratic side… and some even claimed that the Republican Party was in a “death spiral.”
I mean, it really did seem as if Republicans were done. So when I turned on the TV and saw this group of people all dressed up as American colonists and having, by all accounts, a great time, I was intrigued. The Tea Partiers were all about excessive government spending, but they weren’t as yet, overtly partisan; I thought there was an opportunity for Democrats to get behind defense cuts, a position that had historically scared the bejeezus out of them.
No such luck. The Republican Party, sensing the opportunity, wasted little time in embracing the Tea Party as a lifeboat to rescue their sinking brand. And once the Tea Party shocked the political world by electing a Republican unknown to Nassau County Executive over the popular and highly-qualified Democratic candidate, the Republican Party jumped on the Tea Party bandwagon – with both feet. Republican Tea Party candidates ended up winning the House in 2010 and, eventually, control over all three branches of government with the election of Trump in 2016.
Did they cut spending? Nope. In fact, they ballooned deficits to mind-bending proportions. While there’s no reason to think that the first members of the Tea Party were anything other than sincere in their concern over budgetary issues, they were soon co-opted by the Republican Party leadership, who saw the Tea Party as their meal ticket to regaining power.
And they were right. Tea Partiers looked like they were having the time of their lives. And if you see footage of Trump rallies, it’s the same energy. They are having a blast. Such is the power of playing “dress-up.”
I go back to my mantra: “Emotion trumps logic… and tribe trumps everything.” (I was saying this long before Trump, BTW.) Whatever you want to say about Trump, you have to admit that MAGA voters’ connection is way more emotional than logical. And when push comes to shove, emotion wins. Telling people not to feel what they’re feeling is a losing battle.
And even though the MAGA crowd is reveling in hate, racism and misogyny, telling people who are having a good time that they should, instead, be ashamed of themselves instead is a downer. The Harris campaign clearly recognized this and tried to make their campaign as much fun as they could. It just wasn’t enough.
“It’s not really big unless you can dress up to it.”
Because dressing up isn’t everything, of course. If so, marchers in the Village Halloween parade would be running the world. There are other essential elements to building a winning brand, and if I had to list a few off the top of my head, I’d say:
- Strength – Physical strength is a plus, but strength of character is even more important. People need to feel on a gut level that you’ll fight for them.
- Authenticity – Being too scripted is the kiss of death; people can spot a phony a mile away. People felt Trump was “real,” even though he’s the biggest fake who ever ran for office. Trump’s racism, psychopathy and venality was, indeed, quite real – and the authenticity of it ended up being a plus with enough voters to give him the win.
- Humor – Everybody loves a good laugh. Everybody. Republicans constantly ridicule Democrats in what amounts to a “two for the price of one” strategy in both scoring political points and getting a laugh at the same time. (Add another few points for cruelty, which plays well with the base.) Democrats really need to up their “entertainment” game, but that’s much easier said than done. As the pros say, “Dying is easy; comedy is hard.” All the more reason to get busy here.
- Clarity – Republicans win hands-down here, even if it’s largely lies. Republicans cause problems that Democrats end up having to solve; even so, more of an emphasis on solutions (positives) than problems (negatives) would probably be a good idea.
- Simplicity – See “Build a wall.” People get stories about other people more than they get policy, so this is a possible way to both simplify and bring emotion into the debate.
- Positivity – I think negativity only gets you so far. “Make America Great Again” is a positive message and I don’t think the current Democratic messaging (which is purely anti-Trump) will be enough over the long haul. Negative messaging is, indeed, important (see “straw men,” below), but I think that in order to win, it must be secondary to the “feel-good.”
- Straw Men – If stoking fear is the desired result, nothing works like a good “straw man,” an easily-toppled enemy who poses no real danger. (e.g., immigrants, transgender kids, etc.) It’s up to us to show that a straw man is nothing more than a refuge for the coward whose ideas don’t stand up.
So that’s a possible recipe… or perhaps a start, anyway.
“Dressing up” is the magic cherry on top that makes it all delicious. Mussolini had his brownshirts and the iconography of the Roman Empire. (Nothing says “power” like the Roman Empire.”) Hitler was the king of dress-up; the Nazi logo and color-scheme are unparalleled. And MAGA is the brand that ate the Republican Party.
I bring this up to illustrate the power of branding, and to suggest a possible approach to counter Democratic “smarty-pants” branding that, when it comes to all too many Americans, simply doesn’t connect.
I say that “tribe” trumps everything. Hold on to your hijab/yarmulke/MAGA hat here, but “dressing up” is the simplest, most powerful mechanism there is to declare your tribe to the world. And tribe is a “survival” thing; there’s safety in numbers. This is something we all feel instinctively – you don’t have to say a word or even carry a sign. You belong. This is really powerful stuff, particularly in an ever-more-disconnected world.
OK, so you get the power of branding, and how it can change the world. Now, you may ask, “How do the pros do it?”
The answer is… for the most part, even they don’t know! In the initial stages, marketers are often just as in the dark as you or I. But what they have the ability to do is test… and test they will. When they see that something’s working (as with the Tea Party), they’ll throw money behind it. And if a competitor comes up something that’s working, they’ll try to imitate it, counter it, bury it, or buy it outright.
My producer friend once posed a question to me regarding songs: “How do you know when you’ve got a hit?”
This man has a list of hit records as long as your arm, so I didn’t risk embarrassing myself by attempting to respond. His answer: “Do you want to hear it again?”
Think of all the music you’ve listened to in your life. How many times have you been moved to play a song again right after you heard it? If you have, chances are that it’s a hit. (It happened to me at least once with “Love Shack.”)
I say that it’s the same when it comes to political “stardom” – issues are all well and good, but at the end of the day, it’s star power that moves the needle. And you know it… when you see it. Or, better yet, “feel it.” Because it’s an instinctive thing.
It’s important to note that with both MAGA and Tea Party, these were not “top-down” creations; they were both “bottom-up.” MAGA was a creation of Trump and the Republican Party ended up being swallowed by it; the Tea Party was pure grass-roots.
So here’s the the takeaway: Democrats need to be on the lookout for “rockstars,” but not just anyone. There’s no shortage of people out there who are (quite rightly) furious and will want to keep fighting the last war. I say that’s a losing strategy. Anger dissipates; it’s exhausting, hard to keep up over time and, besides, Republicans are much better at it that we are.
Instead, we need to find people who have the right combination of positivity, sense of humor and a genuine connection with working-class values to go after these totalitarian bastards. “Brawlers with brains,” as a friend put it.
Know anybody? Keep your eyes peeled. I have a few in mind, but that’s for a later post.
