Oath Keepers

Throughout modern American history, elected officials have sworn oaths to uphold constitutions and said the Pledge of Allegiance without much controversy. In a handful of cases recently, these routine practices have fallen victim to the same political divisions that have left the country deeply polarized. Politics has long been intermingling with the world of commerce, from door-to-door sales to "branding" to slick advertising campaigns. The same pollsters who track the parties' fortunes also conduct consumer surveys for their corporate clients, sometimes in the same polling sample. When a politician connects with the voters, we call him or her a good "retail politician." It's not magic, and its detractors say that treating politics as a blunt, consumer-marketing exercise could even feed voter cynicism about politics.

For anyone trying to understand the nature of political campaigning in this day and age, to understand how the lessons of business marketing are increasingly being applied to the transactional relationship between politicians and voters. While we're paying attention to the ad wars between opposing political parties, in other words, perhaps we ought to be looking more closely at the marketing battle for votes. It can oftentimes mean differentiating oneself from others can involve using different strategies to weaken the brand values of opponents and to produce a product that has a more popular appeal to voters. However, in the end, it's not able to see who can make the most promises, but rather who can keep them.