In Barack Obama’s America, politics is just another commercial or marketing ploy
July 29, 2009 at 7:36 am by Tom Bortnyk
By Tom Bortnyk
PoHo correspondent
The notorious Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara spent his entire life fighting the evils of capitalism and murdered anyone who did not agree with his socialist agenda. Yet here we are today, in 21st century America, where any hipster can walk into a Target super-store and buy a Che T-shirt and a “Yes We Can” poster. Apparently the college students wearing the shirts missed the chapter on irony in English 101; they must have been attending a “hope & change” rally. Politics, it seems, has become just as much of a battle of commercialism as PC vs. Mac or Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi.
There is no doubt that this is a distinctly 21st century phenomenon. Mass media and explosion of the internet into every household has only fueled America’s consumer culture, to the point where even our political candidates must be marketed and sold. If Billy Mays were still around, and the Sham-Wow guy didn’t beat up a hooker, odds are good we’d see them recruited for campaign ads in 2012.
In the ’60s and ’70s, student activism may have meant something. At the very least, it was a genuine movement for change. It is difficult to say the same for Obama. The campaign strategy was devised with the utmost attention to appeal to idealistic young people. The power of “cool” took hold and attracted more idealistic young people, spreading through college campuses like a disease. I may disagree with Obama on the issues, but I admire his tactical brilliance. Not since Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness have we seen such a massive and mindless army of zombies rallied to a cause.
It looks like Obama’s team and Apple’s Steve Jobs compared notes. The Left managed to sell Obama to the American public as if they were selling the newest iPhone. From the “O” graphic to the “Hope” poster, it seems that the campaign had just as much attention to detail as a corporation marketing its new product. Obama has taken such tactics to new heights, and as Andrew Romano of Newsweek writes, “is the first presidential candidate to be marketed like a high-end consumer brand.”
In the past, it was easy enough to ignore the younger demographics, considering their exceptionally low voter turnout. But in today’s tech-savvy world, having energetic worker-bees at your disposal is the difference between winning and losing. The same determined youth that built Facebook and Twitter into billion-dollar enterprises built a foundation for Obama’s electoral landslide.
Obama is the same substance of the Democratic Party with a shiny new exterior; he managed to take old ideas and repackage them for easy consumption by young people. The campaign promised “change”, but the administration itself has yet to come up with anything new; instead, it relies on the policies of the past. At the same time, they’ve managed to convince an entire generation that their policies are radically new methods for tackling the issues.
Thus far, it has served them well, as it has given Obama and the Congressional Democrat majority the political capital they need to fulfill their agenda. It would be wise, however, for them to tread carefully. One day, they may get too comfortable with being in charge and jeopardize the public’s trust, or worse: discover that they are no longer “cool”.
Tom Bortnyk is a student at Florida State University. This is his first post as a new PoHo contributor.
