It should not be a secret. Democrats and their experts are social engineers. They use government force (higher taxes, regulation, and policy) to control your behavior. Not toward your interests or what you believe improves you or your life, but to use you to advance their priorities and state power.
There is much debate within Republican quarters (the party) regarding their failure or inability (as a party or as individuals) to articulate what Republicans can or will do for voters. The left is good at it, they say. We’ll do this; we’ll give you that. The right, not so much. If only we did a better job of selling our brand.
It’s insurance versus assurance. (And no, it is not a perfect metaphor.)
Democrats offer assurance – the government can and will do this and that for you. They lie (or are at least unrealistically optimistic) about the cost. All the while overselling so-called benefits because for liberty and property it is almost all downside. And that’s not a flaw. Their real goal is to take from you to expand state power.
Democrats are ambulance chasers playing on every emotion at any time of crisis (mostly invented by them) to separate you from your property and natural rights to empower politicians, bureaucrats, and the State.
Republicanism (supposedly) offers insurance. We’ll stand between you and those Democrats when the time comes. We’ll defend your property and your rights. We’re not giving you anything you weren’t born with while trying to take as little as possible for the few things government should do. (I said, supposedly.)
It’s not sexy
For Republicans to answer the question, “well, what’s in it (government) for me” is not simple. You have to explain to most folks why what the Left is doing is terrible for taxpayers or voters or future generations (liberty, all of it) and convince them that the State can’t do it better than they can.
Democrats say sit, and maybe I’ll give you this cookie. Republicans say fetch – and they mean whatever you want on your terms – we’re just here to make sure you no one trips you up, especially the government.
We want to protect individual rights, free markets, and liberty, but it requires more from the people.
In contrast, the Left could promise to send a maid to clean your house and cook for you. Sure, the service will cost somebody trillions of dollars, but not you. And if you buy what they are selling if a maid or cook ever did appear (unlikely), it will be underwhelming and short-lived because the goal was never to clean your house or feed you. It was to rob your rights and property.
Sell that.
Republicanism is about ‘National’ Defense
Modern Republicans are not a sword. They have one but they are meant to be a shield. That’s their brand and that of Republican government. Protect your natural rights and property from all threats, foreign and domestic. “…Establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…”
It is why our government was created. It is why the Constitution exists. If the people do not see or find value in that it is difficult to articulate it as a brand. You are not selling it to them you are offering to let them find a way to earn and buy their own. That means different things to different people and one of those choices is to give it up for a false promise that the government can do anything Democrats claim.
By its very nature, the Republican brand eschews a policy of protecting people from themselves. It encourages them to approach this responsibly on their own (or should). And it promises to step in when the State invades this space.
Donald Trump, whatever you think of him, gets that. He proudly states that they (the Democrats) are not after him, they are after us, but he is standing in their way.
That message will never resonate with everyone.
But it needs to resonate with enough people, in enough states to keep liberty alive. And while the Never Trumpers are hating on Trump, his presidency has done something interesting. It has driven the left to so overreach that many Republicans have unified to defend us from them. From left-wing tyranny.
That’s the brand. So, what’s the messaging?
How do we go out and sell that?
| NHPR
