Liberals want to vote for a politician who presents to them an attractive personal brand with which they want to associate. Conservatives are less neoliberalized and don’t care as much about individualities and personal branding.
Remember when the Democrats decided to run Tim Walz as VP and realized that he was very unpopular with men? What they did then looks completely insane to a conservative mind, but very reasonable to a liberal one. They started dressing him in khakis and filming him holding a hunting rifle. It never occurred to his handlers that, instead of this dress-up show, their candidate should try to offer the voter group he’s trying to attract something that this voter group wants. Because in their reality, what people need is an appealing personal brand to which they can attach themselves. They didn’t offer anything else because they don’t know how to want anything else.
Both groups looked utterly insane to each other. One was completely confused by this marketing routine, and the other couldn’t figure out why the routine was not landing.
Or take Kamala’s “joy” campaign. Liberal people did not perceive what she was doing as weird. They didn’t understand why such a positive campaign associated with a good, if anodyne, emotion was not gaining traction. In the meantime, Trump, with what is probably the most poisonous personal brand in America, was winning. What could they conclude other than that conservatives are either stupid or blind? That Kamala’s joy was completely fake didn’t matter. Marketing campaigns are always artificial, and that doesn’t bother anybody.
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