Viewing The “Election Denier” Faction As A Lifestyle Brand

A lifestyle brand is an idea with a promise based on specific values or interests shared with its audience to make an emotional connection.  It could involve a group of people, a culture or an individual (e.g. Martha Stewart).  The election denier group in the Republican Party is essentially a lifestyle brand.  It is the face of an extremist conglomerate of MAGA voters, Trump supporters and far right conservative activists, who all reject the 2020 election results despite no evidence.

Understanding how this new lifestyle brand is perceived by all voters today helps explain the Republicans’ under-performance in the recent election.  Good branding starts with diagnosing the most compelling emotional needs or problems of a target audience (e.g. voters on the abortion issue), and then offering solutions that are relevant and credible.  The election denier candidates instead focused more on character assassination, attacking their competition with disinformation and offered few meaningful or detailed proposals.

What The 2022 Election Revealed

A major surprise from this election was the overall rejection of extremism (including both sides of the aisle), especially the election deniers, by most moderate Republicans, Independents and Democrats.  They perceive the election denier candidates as synonymous with extremists (75% of MAGA or Trump supporters are election deniers – Pew Research).  These conservative voters are generally less educated (no college degree), live in rural America, and are older and white.  Importantly they are strongly influenced by misinformation and conspiracy theories spread on social media.  The core beliefs of these conservatives are anti-government and a passionate sense of individualism (e.g. the “don’t-tell-me-what-to-do” crowd).

The key to success for a lifestyle brand is engendering trust, credibility and integrity.  The 2022 election demonstrated how the promises of the election denier brand were out of step with most voters.  For example:

• Trump Fatigue – while his appeal to the MAGA group (i.e. about 40% of all Republicans) may remain strong, other Americans are increasingly turned off by his role in the January 6^th uprising, all the credible accusations of his fraud and corruption, and his consistent egotistical and volatile behavior of defiance and abrasiveness (exit polls show that nearly 60% of voters have an unfavorable view of Trump). In short, his endorsements of election denier candidates did more harm than good.
• Disinformation – the argument that the 2020 election was not legitimate is basically a conspiracy theory. The algorithms of social media (e.g. Facebook) unfortunately are designed to amplify the spread of such misinformation, which sustained the convictions of most election deniers, but more and more voters have become sick of all the hatred, pugnacious accusations, polarization and violence (e.g. the attack on Paul Pelosi) that such disinformation has been creating.
• The Abortion Issue – the emotional concern over woman’s rights was severely under estimated by Republicans, especially the far right. 24% of all voters said abortion was their most important issue, and 73% of them voted Democratic.  This misguided expectation certainly undermined the trust of the election denier lifestyle brand
• Voter Segments – The election turnout was greater than anyone expected, with more women (53% voted Democratic) and especially younger voters who overwhelmingly favored Democrats (67% of voters 18-29 voted Democratic, versus only 35% for Republicans). Their primary causes, climate change, gun control and abortion, were all opposed by Republicans
• Democracy – 58% of respondents to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in September said that MAGA was a threat to American democracy, a clear indication of the growing concern over the “politics of menace” fostered by these election deniers.

There are many dynamics to be considered for examining this election, but the overall rejection of the election denier lifestyle brand creates a dilemma for Republicans going forward.  The clear choice of most Americans was for moderation, not extremism.  More people want normalcy and decency.  Governor Tony Evers of Wisconsin aptly summarized this election as “boring wins”.   Americans want less histrionic media soap operas.  They simply want honest people who can get stuff done.