Kinsley
was correct: The notion of branding did indeed derive from the commercial world,
and there were portions even there where it took a while to take root. (It was
considered quite novel three decades ago when I worked for a not-for-profit
organization that served the real estate industry when several developers who
had just gone public began to brand their properties in an effort to increase
their value.)
In
mid-2014, Kinsley's peg to consider this idea was
Eric Cantor, a House Majority Whip running into turbulence in his campaign to
retain his Congressional seat. The Republican congressman’s attempts to brand
his primary challenger a liberal—and to soften the views of constituents who
felt he himself had become arrogant and was taking them for granted—both failed,
in what was called one of the most stunning electoral upsets in memory.
Wouldn’t
you know that it took someone from the “commercial world" to
show Capitol Hill grandees the right way to “brand.” A journalist friend of
mine recounted how, during an interview with Donald Trump, the then-New
York developer, asked for how he had become so successful, responded, “It’s the
Trump brand.” That phrase ended up repeated so often in the interview, my friend
said, that he was sick of it by the time the talk was over.
Much to
the astonishment of local journalists who had been following Trump’s career
from its early days, he followed the path to the White House through the
creation of a spurious “brand” on his “reality” show The Apprentice: a
businessman so phenomenally rich that he would never be tempted to steal or
grift.
Little
could these non-New York voters have imagined that, once re-elected to the
White House, Trump would try to rebrand several capital institutions after
himself. This renaming and construction phase is so manic that he is beginning
to resemble some of the more debauched, egocentric Roman emperors.
Simultaneously,
Trump began to target GOP candidates, large and small, as part of his brand.
What voters face now, like it or not, is an organization committed not to conservative
principles as such, but to Trump.
The
question that scares the GOP now, a couple of weeks before the midterm
elections, is whether the President has pushed his branding campaign too
aggressively: too fast, and on too many fronts.
They
wonder if too many of these races have become unnecessary toss-ups, with voters
resembling a work colleague of mine who said he was delighted that a property
of one developer had added that company’s moniker to its own: “Great! Now I’ll
know to avoid it from now on.”
Now eighty
years old, Trump should not by rights be able to “rebrand” himself to skeptical
voters. But like some combination of Rasputin and Count Dracula, he’s come back
from the dead (or undead) too many times before to be counted out now. Democrats would be
making a colossal mistake if they become overconfident of their chances.
