Democratic Brand Needs to Rebrand or Lose

Democratic Brand Needs to Rebrand or Lose

John Tantillo

As the saying goes regarding elections, "The candidate with the most votes always wins."

Republicans had to find this out the hard way, as evidenced by their loss in the 2020 Presidential sweepstakes, where Democrats utilized what this writer had coined as "political intelligence," which is simply a ground game to get out their voters along with an aggressive pre-election legal team that took no prisoners when it came to challenging suspect local election law changes implemented to throw judicial judgments in favor of their well prepared legal arguments.

Democrats in the past always had three advantages over Republicans. First, they had more funds to spend on their campaigns due to their practical fundraising efforts; second, they had a better ground game/political intelligence as outlined above; and third, they were on the side of the angels regarding the day's issues.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, two of the three advantages have been neutralized by the Republicans, with the only remaining advantage — fundraising on life support due to an unsuccessful $1 billion campaign. To further complicate this situation, a deficiency was reportedly the campaign, which made donors unhappy.

As mentioned, the Democrat Ground Game/Political Intelligence advantage is no longer an issue, as evidenced by Scott Pressler and his get-out-the-vote strategy, along with his aggressive team of lawyers who litigated any election law discrepancies before election day. These challenges before the election were significant because judges resisted changing election outcomes once votes had been counted.

To make matters worse, Democrats are no longer perceived as the working people's party but rather a party of elites who are more concerned about climate change than the price of gas, which is very important to most American voters.

This was seen in Biden's executive order restraining oil development on government lands and issuing drilling permits for oil companies to make a profit. Shortsightedness like this resulted in significant increases in oil prices, which affected the supply-chain costs and contributed to inflation.

In addition to the Democratic misstep regarding oil production, Bill O'Reilly identified 10 issues that most Americans objected to. They include:

1. Race and gender preferences;
2. Language police;
3. No punishment for criminals;
4. Open Borders;
5. Attacks on Supreme Court;
6. Transgender sports competition;
7. Antisemitism;
8. Wealth Tax;
9. Cancel Culture;
10. Government-run healthcare.

The Democrats were on the wrong side of most issues cited above and, to date, have no plans to change their positions any time soon, no matter what the data suggests. The Democratic Brand is the ideologue brand, which means that if they change, they will be turning their back on those concerns that their base wholeheartedly prescribes.

These positions also appeal to their vocal nonmainstream demographic, which includes issue-critical females, where abortion and women's healthcare are nonnegotiables, along with militant gay men, where gay rights are their only issue. Any disagreement can result in being canceled.

Both groups are more concerned with ideology than they are with making compromises, which are the basis for all things political.

It should be mentioned that for both groups, most Americans agree with them regarding abortion with some limitations and gay marriage. "Eight in ten Americans (80%) favor laws that would protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people against discrimination in jobs, public accommodations, and housing."

And according to a recent Pew Research Poll, a clear majority of Americans (63%) "say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 36% say it should be illegal in all or most cases."

The Democratic brand needs a brand-over. They must decide who their demographic is and target them with policies that resonate with them. If they don't, they will continue their losing ways and then understand that it is always easier when you have branding and marketing in mind.