“I can neither confirm nor deny my bigotry, as to confirm it would alienate every voter who isn’t a tight-permed churchy scold in a cat sweatshirt, and to deny it would cost me those churchy scolds who I need to win primaries even in the state of Illinois. And have you seen this fucking place? It’s becoming INSANELY GAY up in here, so I am caught between being a Republican and being a decent human being who does not give a damn who you or anyone else screws, and in that calculus decency will lose every time. And yet. I don’t support marriage equality because I haven’t supported it. So there.”
There was a lot of noise last week about Republican “re-branding.” Full disclaimer, I am about as good a marketer as I am a pet therapist (“SHUT THE FUCK UP, FLUFFY!”) but I wonder if it isn’t a bad marketing decision to announce loudly that you are re-branding, as that implies that your previous brand was deficient. And using the term re-branding implies you’re not really going to do anything different. You’re just changing the colors of the brochure.
Now, that might make sense, if the racism and sexism and fear and insularity and general dislike of one’s fellow Americans was somehow an innacurate spectrum with which to portray the modern Republican party. As it is, though, I could re-brand this site as FIRST DRAFT: THE WORLD’S BEST SPORTS BLOG and people still wouldn’t read us for baseball coverage.
A.
Rebranding is a surprisingly effective tool, if you have a decent product to sell and youdon’t already have an entrenched image in the public consciousness. The Republicans are the party of old white conservative dudes, gun nuts, and church ladies. They’re going to have a really hard time convincing anyone otherwise.
Plus the GOP has the advantage that the compliant media will accept the rebranding at face value and that will do most of the work for them. It will require some time for their innate evil to seep back through the coat of new paint.
“New Coke.”
Great idea!
Would this be the same Aaron Schock who was looking a charges that he had improperly solicited SuperPac money. A Cantor aid refused to work with the Office of Congressional Ethics in investigating this. And was looking at a special investigative subcommittee to investigate this – except the majority repub house refused to do so?