GUESS IT'S THAT TIME FOR A REPUBLICAN PARTY REBRANDING

This blog is 12+ years old, from 2009 with President Obama's first term. The focus has been eclectic ...focusing on the ways and directions of American politics and culture, and occasionally new technologies. Pericles21's observations sometimes attract a critical eye, but the 'pen' remains unblunted.

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Political parties are in a bind when they don't have anything of substance to offer and don't have the sense, depth of real feeling, nor intellectual nuance to come up with real thoughts, real positions, or real contributions to society. Lacking these qualifications, a party such as the Republicans once more has to face the Nixonian challenge...'WTF are we gonna do to save this sinking ship?'  But, this time things seem more desperate than in Nixon's time because he and Ronald Reagan used up all the storylines, diversions, schemes, plots, canards, red herrings, and other facadic masks ...ie. they left nothing for current Republicans to scrounge from to fool the public.  

But, 'Hey, no worries...just rebrand, repaint, re-'stuff'  that smelly old sock...with anything that can be trotted out under the banner of 'New!', and pray that the public is as stupid as you think it is and that it swallows the tasteless swill that rolls down the chute from the Republican propaganda mill.

And this is where the 2022 Republican Party is now - it is neck-deep in mucky infighting, spouting slogans that carry no meaning except dog-whistle calls to violence and hate. It is awash in scandal, and an embarrassingly large number of its 'leaders' seem near to real historical charges of insurrection and sedition.

Back in 2009, this blogger commented on the empty vacuum that was the Republican Party which was drowning in its own self-destructive quicksand of empty phrases and zombie substitutions for real leaders; it was desperately reaching for a lifesaver, anything that could float and save the Party from complete irrelevance. 

And so the Republican 'brain trust' came up with idea of simply 'rebranding' itself as if it was a box of kiddy cereal that needed brighter colored packaging, larger type and more (faked) flavor stimulation. Nixon's "Southern Strategy" was the result - blame everything on America's favorite drug addiction, race.

So was 'invented' the easiest line up of substitutes for real thinking and substantive political platforms ... the Great Con Series (the Loyalty Oath (Michael Steele, RNC Chair/President) and the Tea Party....both mirroring their authoritarian precursors of 1930s Brown Shirts and the extreme authoritarian flavor of the Bolsheviks, Stalin, Mao, ...

Entering into the maelstrom of political 'midterms, one wonders what meaningless 'cons' and diversions the Republican Party will come up with this time...especially its ship has been near completely hi-jacked by such numeraries as Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn, Susan Collins (the sea anchor), and a host of other 'special' politicians...Cotton, Abbott, Cruz, etc.

Michael, Sarah, Boby, Joe, and Bachmann, too, Oh My

To the trio of stalwart GOP revolutionaries Sara, Bobby, Michael and Joe The Not-Plumber, let's add Michele-BaghdadBobbi-UBDM Bachmann (MBUB). The future is theirs, one imagines, not.

Michele is come to full bloom and is eager to demonstrate her miraculous trick of replacing reality with mere words, like her esteemed namesake Baghdad Bob, (former minister of Information, Iraq War 2). She will be a welcomed addition to the original GOP trio of fine feathered, red capped, revolutionaries.

Understanding the GOP: Michael, Sarah, Bobby and Joe Explained

The "new" GOP continues to fascinate this blogger; it puzzles me greatly, it repells and attracts, it is like a untranslatable transmission from the realm of the living dead. It seems morbid and comical, striving and dead, focused and frayed...these and more contrary characteristics all mushed together under one lid. Insincerity, cynicism and falsity need to be redifined when speaking of the GOP these days; they just have no meaning to the GOP.

To unravel confusion about the GOP, I recommend viewing the GOP indirectly, out of the corner of the eye, because nothing is there. At worst, 'Smoke and mirrors' comes to mind. At best, and this in my mind is the key to this puzzle, the GOP uses a current American marketing device to transmit its message - brand selling. The GOP is not real, it is a protrayal, an insincere projection of an selected image that is not real,...it is a brand that is imaged, symbolized, and marketed as a label that hopefully will invoke automatic, unthinking, pavlovian-reflex knee bendng in its believers and viewers who will then...buy it.

Brand marketing. Brand culture. Branding. Face, dress, suits, image, surface, slogans, brand jingles. What sells. Brand marketing and selling are characteristics, not character, and carry no moral content except success (make the sale) or failure. The GOP is a party of image, and images per se are ghosts.

What is absent in GOP brand selling is depth, reality (Steele's plan to attract "keep it real", hip hop nation is laughable - the 'hood' is as real as it gets in America), well-thought-out precepts, sensitivity and more.

Because sincerity is not part of their concern, because sincerity is simply irrelevant when the focus is on selling the label, the GOP actions can't be judged in a normal way. If it does not sell, then simply change the label and appearance until it does sell - there is no looking back, or need to preserve consistency. There is no real attachment to the "product" because in the mind of the GOP, it is the label that sells and thus the label is all important. "Product" is irrelevant. This is a different way of thinking to most DEMS. This difference explains why the GOP can accuse the DEMS of being bleeding hearts, because the GOP regards sincerity and heart as extraneous to selling the label.

Selling itself as a label allows the GOP turn on a dime in ways that can confound and amaze. McCain lost real credibility by bringing in a Palin and posting Jindal in the wings, both brand labels that GOP felt would counter what they saw as the Obama and Hillary labels. The rest of us saw these moves as extreme, mind boggling examples of cynicism and falsity. But by GOP standards, this was a simple move because they saw only superficial qualities in both Obama and Hillary - skin color and a female - labels in their minds.

The GOP can never get it that DEMS feel deeply about the greater societal meaning of an Obama or Hillary. According to GOP precepts, 'greater meaning' is dangerous thinking because it detracts from the attention to the label.

Joe the Plumber is another good example of label marketing. That Joe is not a licensed plumber, owes back taxes, and in other ways is not the best example of hard work and success, nevertheless he is easily labeled as blue collar, mid American with a hoped for link to that voting bloc. Understandably, from their modus operandi of brand-label sell, the GOP is unconcerned about licensing and all, and they are genuinely puzzled by the outrage and disbelief caused by these moves. Likewise, Michael Steele being the new RNC chair of a 98% white party represents no moral contrast or emabrassment issue for the GOP because Mr. Steele is not seen as a person, he is merely a brand label that will assist the selling of the product. But the question leaps forth - what exactly is the product? Why the product is nothing but success.

Superficial investment in label sell is why the GOP in power can accomplish nothing meaningful or lasting because it only values success, and surface labels - corporate jets, power mansions, wealth. Most importantly and dangerously, the GOP focus on success, means its ultimate goal, power and influence, is meaningless except for the label it provides. The GOP has no thought behind what it wants to do with any power it might win. It is power for power's sake.

But what is the ultimate power game? War. War is the biggest sell of all...because if I win, I know for certain you lose, because you are dead, along with your wife and kids, your nation, your culture. In this picture, War killing and success bear no greater meaning than a record sales year for Campbell soup. But nevertheless, it is a win and palpable. This is why the GOP is so focused on winning, when the best, more strategic, outcome might be something less than total defeat and destruction. In war scenarios, the GOP ideology for total win is a pair of handcuffs - self-trapping and leading nowhere and logically to lame retreat with nothing accomplished.

This GOP superficiality is big problem for Democrats who even (admittedly often according to ancient, well thought out spiritual thinking) take themselves by their own hand along the road to understand differences, to see and confront their own reactions, and try to attain the goal of enlightenment with regard to their interactions with the rest of humanity. Hey, sometimes DEMS follow the philosophical precepts of the founding Fathers of the Republic. The GOP will lay claim to founding fathers as labels, however, without regard to what the Fathers actually wrote ot thought.

DEM goals are character qualities that don't guarantee success because they are inner goals. The GOP is outwardly directed on label symbolism that can be seen read in print, logo-lized; but these labels dont have to represent truth. Truth in labeling is not a GOP quality. Why do you think during a GOP administration the country experiences a watering down if not outright falsity (to DEMS, mothers with children, drinkers of water, many breathers of air, etc) in regulations for food, water, pharmaceuticals, accounting, banking, etc..

And finally, Sarah, Michael, Bobby and Joe. They show no embarassment at their seeming misplacements because they have bought into the Label. It's All about the label.

Jindal, Palin, Steele, Volcanoes, Oh My

What is going on with the Republican Party? There is some serious high weirdness happening every minute with them. It just seems like the Repubs have lost it. The global evolution has run away from them and all they can come up with are racial insults, snickering and adolecent word play,"stop the train" feet dragging, or crazy ideas crafted to derail all of us.

One clue, the smart money Republican professional politicians started to voluntarily drop out of the re-election races a year ago. So much for serving the nation, but what did we think most Republicans were in office for anyway (joined by Illinois governors, sadly).

But the trio in the headline is too much. Choke. This crew is the happening, right now, in your face GOP? Like a slap with a wet kleenex! Hip Hop revolutionaries? And after Obama's great speech to the American people, Jindal minces down a dark hallway to mock volcano monitoring when for real, Alaska right now is waiting for the mother of volcano eruptions that just might kill thousands in Alaska, Japan, tidal waves across the Pacific...what absurd ignorance. What?

Jindal's speech (?) after Obama's address was like a sparrow trying to keep up with an eagle. And what was that, generously speaking, semi-slide, dance step Jindal showed as he ...jeez, this is embarrassing..twinkle toed down the hall to the microphone? WTF. Palin, Steele, Jindal. Jeez.

What is curiously shared by Jindal and Steele, both men of color, is how they manage to cozy up to out-and-out racists. In the campaign, Palin did her bit of cozying in the deep red belt, too, but Wasilla (Alaska, her home town)is rumored to be just a colder red belt, tweaker colony.

I dont like this move by the Repubs. One can disagree honestly with an opposing political view because one is afterall a believer in the principles of two party government. But it just seems like the Repubs have lost it. The global evolution has run away from them and all they can come up with is either insults, snickering and adolecent word play,"stop the train" feet dragging, or crazy ideas crafted to derail all of us. They have left empty seats at the table as they wander off, maybe smoking fake cigarettes out behind the barn. Did the real Repubs take off in silver seeds to nowhere, their time came and they're gone and left this crew behind?

Michael Steele, Hip Hop GOP? (Not), and the Party that Steals

Michael Steele(MS) proposes to steal hip hip nation, wanna bet. Steele steals. Stealing Steele. Steele the man of steel, not. Steely stealing Steele steals what's real. GOP hip hop make over? Hardly. GOP and Hip Hop.Not. Sparrows and eagles...both are birds but there are differences, maybe not noticed by those with special comprehension problems, like Repubs. Pickles and candy canes, get it? GOP is so ready to grab anything out of reach. All of this is so weird words flee, I have the same feeling. GOP. Old. Party, Not.