Last April, Donald Trump sat for a deposition in the offices of Letitia James. The New York attorney general had filed a civil fraud case against the former president, alleging he’d inflated the value of his assets to secure favorable loans and tax benefits. In seven hours of testimony, Trump held forth about everything from nuclear war to marble bathrooms.
Then, out of the blue, Trump explained what he believed had gotten him elected in 2016.
“I became president because of the brand, OK?” he said. “I think it’s the hottest brand in the world.”
For once, even Trump’s foes could not accuse him of hyperbole.
While Trump was referring to his business brand (his name adorns condos, hotels, golf resorts and a winery), he was no doubt referring to his personal brand, too. Sure, it may not have been the hottest in the world, but the brand Trump had constructed around his public persona—the anti-establishment maverick, the swamp-draining champion of the blue-collar voter—was certainly enough to open the Oval Office door.
And, as we know, the strength and appeal of another personal brand—that of “regular Joe” Biden—opened that same door four years ago.
As these two men prepare to square off in the 2024 elections in November, the media is awash with discussions about Biden’s and Trump’s policies. But a marketing-minded look might be most in order. Whether they’re aware of it or not, Americans have been voting for brands since the days of black-and-white television. When it comes to Biden and Trump, those brands are not only more complex than any before them, but they’re also rapidly evolving.
The brands we elect
Framing Biden and Trump as political brands is not an exercise in the abstract—it reflects how most of us vote.
“Political analysts like to imagine that voters control government by choosing candidates who share their policy preferences—but in reality, most voters support parties and candidates based on other factors,” said Vanderbilt University political science professor Larry M. Bartels, co-author of the 2017 book Democracy for Realists. “The most potent partisan attachments often reflect feelings of shared social identity, a sense that a candidate is ‘one of us.’ Those feelings are a product of political rhetoric more than reality.”
