Opinion: Trump is selling himself. Readers say the L.A. Times shouldn’t help him do that.
Donald Trump, the real estate developer who sold himself to the American people as the next presidential candidate of the “party of choice,” is now at a disadvantage because, by virtue of his presidency, he has been perceived as the man who lost the popular vote. How will he fare against Hillary Clinton in a general election? That’s a question that is not easy — or even very relevant — to answer.
But there’s another way to look at Trump’s candidacy and put it in context, and that is as a political marketing tool. And in the process, we’ve seen a new phenomenon.
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People are no longer waiting for Hillary Clinton to emerge on the scene — they are waiting for Trump to fall away. We are in an era when Trump’s political branding — what we might think of as his “brand personality” — has surpassed his traditional image as a presidential candidate. And not just because he’s more fun to talk about.
If Trump were a brand, he would be the anti-brand.
If his campaign was primarily about his brand personality, he would be an unlikable brand — because he wouldn’t have to make any of his campaign’s decisions based on the fact that he’s a candidate with a popular vote deficit.
In the post-modern world of social media, where Trump has been able to tap into a powerful new medium — Twitter — to engage with his supporters, he has become the brand personality. He is not, in the truest sense of the term, the leader of a political party, but rather the spokesperson for the party’s brand. He has set out to be the anti-brand by making himself the brand, and he has succeeded.
In fact, this is not a new phenomenon on the Republican Party. The brand is the Republican Party.
