This is the third and final entry to my three-part diary on political branding.
The first installment explained, at least in my view, how the Wingnuts tore down the liberal brand by marketing the myth of the dangerous ultra-liberal. Left unopposed for so many years, this myth has come to include not only anything un-conservative but also most things rational and thoughtful.
The second installment explained, at least in my view, how the Wingnuts, for all their armor, still have vulnerabilities that can be challenged - chief of which is the fact that their ideas are religious in nature (not practical, as ideas ought to be) and that their primary concern is to continue destroying the liberal brand (not problem solve anything).
After the flip, the third and final installment of Brand Wars, detailing what problem-solving liberals can do to play David to the Wingnut Goliath.
In Episode I, I used Rush Limbaugh as an example of how the RBS (Right-Wing Brand Strategy) operates by taking advantge of the lack of a functioning LBS (Left-Wing Brand Strategy).
For purposes of Episode III, which is concerned with the forging of an LBS, I'd like to single out a liberal pundit: John Kenneth Galbraith.
If you don't know anything about Galbraith, allow me to suggest that you should. If you don't have a head for economics and don't feel like tackling, say, The New Industrial State, then I would recommend the excellent biography by Richard Parker.
But to the point, Galbraith played offense, not just defense. And Galbraith did it with wit, charm and eloquence that was accessible to everyone, not the passionate vitriol which is the definitive tactic of the Wingnut. When was the last time a liberal leader or pundit, unprovoked and out of the blue, said something like this in the national media?
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
In other words, stop complaining about what those nasty Wingnuts did and start talking about what they are. And do it in a way that gives people something to think about. People respond to offense because it is kinetic. An LBS that is constant defense, by contrast, is pathetic.
When was the last time a liberal leader or pundit took a minute to stop defending him or herself in the headlines in order state the obvious about why people like King George II?
There's a certain part of the contented majority who love anybody who is worth a billion dollars.
Or something like this:
Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.
Yes, it's important for people to understand why modern Conservative rhetoric appeals so much to an angry minority. But maybe it's also important to remind everyone else in a sentence instead of a book, and in a way that will make them laugh, why they're voting against their own interests.
When was the last time, after being accused of being a leftist ultra-liberal in an economic debate, you caught a liberal leader or pundit fire back something like this?
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.
Over and over again from liberals, it's defense instead of offense. Sometimes people like you just because you throw a punch and stand up for yourself. The Democratic Party's obsession with out-talking people who scream loud nonsense in lieu of practical ideas in maddening, and it's no wonder they can't win elections. People can't hear them. All too often, it just sounds like jibberish, in three parts, with annotations.
Simplify. Get aggressive. Give Wingnuts something to be defensive about for a change. Make people laugh. Seduce them with your conviction to problem-solve, regardless of ideology. Democrats are liberal because they're rational, not the other way around.
Joe Scarborough recetly blogged about this. He's dropping so many hints to Democrats, week after week, that I'm starting to think he's a closet Liberal.
...And like the marriage amendment that went up in flames last month, this flag-burning proposal is an example of George Bush and Karl Rove setting political traps for Democrats, who can now count on being painted as the party of gay marriage and flag burning. Not exactly the best way to win back "Red State" America.
Democrats constantly on the defensive, unwilling to say anything more about the issue other than what Scarborough points out - that is was a political stunt.
STOP giving the Wingnut power by just talking about what they did and instead go on to offer something like this:
Democratic Senator X: I don't support flag burning. What the President and Karl Rove are trying to do with a political stunt like this is draw attention away from what I do support - people's freedom to choose for themselves not to burn the flag. They currently have that freedom, and they currently choose not to burn the flag. I voted to protect that freedom
But we aren't hearing anything like this from elected Democrats, and so Scarborough's analysis is right, in my view.
It's like the entire LBS, inasmuch as one even exists, is stuck in a perpetual food coma.
The Liberal will not return to power until he/she forces himself to adapt, go on the attack and stop making Wingnut tactics seem legitimate by being too proud in his/her ideas to be a Galbraith instead of a Hillary, a Feingold instead of a Lieberman, a Roosevelt instead of a insert name here.
I look forward to your ideas and hope that mine can serve to start a constructive discussion about the LBS and the return of the Liberal.