In advertising and marketing, a brand is a way of creating an emotional attachment between the public and a product (a good or a service – or a person such as a celebrity, politician, or other public personality). This is done through repeated messaging that involves slogans, songs, logos, color use, narrative, and other means of storytelling and emotional manipulation. The most effective marketing achieves “semiotic unity” where the brand and what is being sold are universally understood to be inseparable from one another in the minds of the target audience (for example see “Coca Cola” and other legacy brands).
Over the last few decades, the Republican Party and larger right-wing propaganda marketing machine have done an excellent job at branding the Democratic Party (and liberals, progressives and “the left” more broadly). This branding includes language and narrative frames where the Democrats are “libtards”, “feminazis”, “anti-white”, “baby killers”, “takers” and “welfare queens.” The Democrats are also the political party of “racial minorities.” Thus they are not “patriotic” “real Americans” or strong on national defense. The Democrats have been branded as the party of the welfare state, big government, “dependency”, anti-business and anti-capitalism – and in the most extreme frame as being communists, socialists, and/or statists. The Republicans and right-wing have also branded the Democrats as being anti-Christian, anti-god, pro-gay and anti-family, feminine, weak, and now “woke” and “DEI” and “anti-cop.”
