Branding the Republicans

Consumers may not realize the amount of effort and thought that goes into Brands. "Kleenex" and "Xerox" lead the fight to keep their brands from becoming generic terms for "tissue" and "photocopy." Because so much money is at stake.

We Progressives are in a unique time and place to re-position our Brand. Let's do it, and stop letting the Republicans do it for us. Establish both our Brand and theirs, and we will turn the Republican's strength into a weakness. We have to.

Because so much is at stake.

How can we get through to the low information electorate quickly and simply? There's so much to cover.

The contaminated pet food and toys that strikes the most vulnerable of those we love?

The senseless war that has killed, damaged, and endangered the least vulnerable element of our society, the military, and left it unable to do its job?

The ridiculous tax cut and deregulation policies which crumble the foundations of our roads and bridges, our education and our skills, our business and our dollars?

It's everywhere. It's huge. How do we sum up ALL the cronyism, corruption, and callousness?

Republican.

They bought it, they broke it, and now they own it.

Republican.

They've been whining about it, flooding our airwaves with it, and screaming about it for long enough. Let's hang it around their necks.

Republican.

For thirty years the Republican party has been defining our brand for us. We are the "tax and spend" party, the "wimpy on National Defense" party, the "elitist, latte drinking, Volvo driving," party. The fearsome, horrible, ineffectual, nanny state people who have been damned with the label "liberals."

Okay. So we're Progressives. It even sounds better. As Democrats, we will differentiate ourselves from the Republicans by advancing Progressive ideals and policy.

Democrats want to fix all the stuff the Republicans broke.

No more of this sidling over to the Republicans. No more of this "me too" campaigning. What distinguishes the different dish soaps, laundry detergents, and other cleaning products that fill the aisle in the supermarket? Not much, frankly. And they know that. So they hammer at Their Brand. They never, never, never say their dish soap is in any way like another dish soap.

Because that's not how you capture the market. The way to capture the market is to say, loudly and clearly and constantly, that their brand is Different! and thus... Better!

So we must do the same.

The Republicans have destroyed their brand. They hope the electorate will not notice. That's why McCain is campaigning as an American's American in America for Americans who are proud of being Americans.

McCain, the Republican, isn't campaigning as a Republican. They know their brand is screwed. They're hoping the voters won't notice. They're hoping we won't notice.

We can't make this just another stunt they get away with.

They bought it, they broke it, they own it.

Republican.

End this talk of "Bush administration," and "the conservative mindset" and the "Neocons," and the "religious right." These are holes, ingredients they can label as something their brand no longer has. Of course, it's lies. That's why they say it. But unless and until they change the name of their party, they can't take the Republican out of the party. That's what they are. That's what they all are.

All the lies, betrayals, treason, secrecy, mayhem, and bloodshed they have perpetrated is Republican.

It's ALL Republican.

The falling dollar, bleak economic picture, and high prices at the pumps and produce counter?

Republican.

The malfeasance and bribery and contempt for our press, our government, and our freedoms?

Republican.

The ruthless destruction of our homes, our children, and our lives?

Republican.

Make that word the horror it is. Create in the electorate the same revulsion the word has come to mean for us, who understand it, who realize what's going on, who know how important it is that we break the linkage between what people think they are getting, and what they actually get when they vote:

Republican.

All of them. Bush, Cheney, Rice, Gonzales, Ashcroft, and Rumsfeld. The Iraq war, the wrecked economy, the dangerous goods they let into our country and the dangerous ideas they have lulled and lured the electorate with.

Sum it all up in who they are running for President, for Senator, for Representatives, for National, for State, for Local.

These are Republicans.

Now we know what happens when we vote for Republicans, don't we?

Every complaint on the street or at the checkout counter, every political discussion, every cry of disillusionment and despair, must be countered with their Brand.

Republican. That's the problem.

We can't let McCain run away from it. He's gone along with everything they did. He's sucking up to their movers and shakers. He's literally embraced Bush.

He's a Republican.

All this maverick stuff is just talk. Maverick started as a designation for unbranded calves, which anyone could pick up. But, of course, calling him a maverick is a lie. He's sooooo branded.

Republican.

It's not just Bush, or imperialism, or deregulation, or Katrina or Iraq. It's all of it; every looted dollar and dead soldier.

They bought it, they broke it, and they own it.

Republican.

Let no one forget.

An Epidemic of Assery

Photo from this store, Gorey Details. I tried my best to tastefully illustrate this subject. By so doing, I was in no way implying that cats are a half-assed pet. To the contrary, cats so rarely make asses of themselves, and are so obviously mortified when they do, that they serve as excellent role models of Unassery. If there is anything inoffensive, in the world, on the subject of assery, it is cartoon cat butts.

There is a epidemic of assery loose in the country, and it is not hidden. Yet it is past time to step in and turn this raging inferno of assery back to the low, background simmer which is more containable. We usually cannot cure victims of Total Assery, but if we did not handle them in some humane manner, more good people will be lost to assery.

There are people who will always do things some half-assed way. Such people are unteachable. While not always slow to learn, they are certainly unable to learn this: Don't do things half-assed.

Now, Unassery consists very much of this First Law of Assery, Don't do things half-assed. That's because humans can sometimes have difficulty judging the importance of things. Being able to judge the importance of things when we can't stop doing things half-assed will at least mean we will never do anything important for the sake of humanity.

Because only Total Asses forget the Second Law of Assery: The degree of assery is inverse to the degree of consideration.

The danger of doing things half-assed is that, uncontained, it can progress to Total Assery. The Total Ass creates, in The Theory of Black Holes of Assery, a dangerous state of being wherein people raging with Assery Fever create a tremendous collapse of Utter Assery from which no living thing has ever returned.

We do not know the Threshold of Utter Assery. Urban legends abound of brave scientists pulled back from the brink who lived, but were afterwards a source of psychic pains in the asses of humans within range, and are obsessed with discrediting the theory of evolution on which all biology is based.

When it is the authorities who are being Utter Asses, the infection can reach critical mass in a terrible explosion of Utter Assery which has a half-life of decades, if not centuries.

Assery must be suppressed with a public health initiative. Once assery is destroyed by repeated injections of reality and constant compresses of ridicule, the afflicted should be treated for the rest of their lives in exchange for their quarantine from spheres of influence, from which the infection spreads.

These "Typhoid Marys of Assery" must be treated humanely, lest we all succumb to assery, but they are a terrible danger.

We must think of the children.