Letters to the Editor
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they're not my friends. they're my coworkers, and our job is being popular.
This discussion is reminding me, over and over again, that we live in a consumer culture, where marketing and branding account for so much of we see and say and do and are.
People seem to be relating to these candidates in much the same way as they relate to prestige brands. A car is a car, a handbag is a handbag. There are issues of aesthetics and quality and cost that come into play, but the cultural associations also affect our decisions w/r/t what we buy -- The People Who Like This Sort Of Thing, and how much we want to belong to that group, or how contemptuous of that group we are.
On some level, one can't be blamed for thinking of candidates as brands and their followers as branded "types", because the candidates themselves have embraced that rubric -- Hillary with her neat whiskey, Obama brushing "dirt" off his shoulders like Jay-Z tells us we should. That's the way things are these days. But as citizens -- as voters with an awesomely important job to do -- I'd venture that we are obligated to reject that stuff, even when our preferred "brands" tell us it's okay not to, to join a club or jeer at another club's members. Our beloved candidates are selling themselves short by promoting themselves this way, even though it seems to work beautifully for them.
I don't think we should buy into this. It demeans us and corrupts the process. Next time that thought crosses your mind -- "I don't like [x] because I don't like the people who like [x]" -- please, please give that impulse a second look. For all our sake. Whether it's about a political candidate, or a pair of shoes, or a sofa, or anything. Down that road madness lies.