As demonstrated this week at Chicago's United Center, modern American politics is an exercise in branding. Republicans have created a brand based on exclusive claims to so-called patriotic, small government and pro-life traditional values. With Donald Trump, this exercise in branding has become even more extreme — but does not hold up to critical inquiry.
The Republican Party’s claims of supreme “patriotism” fall apart quite easily as they cannot be reconciled with support for Donald Trump and a neofascist movement that attempted a coup on Jan 6, and channels the language and policies of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. In the Age of Trump, today’s MAGAfied Republicans and “conservatives” and the larger right-wing also idolize political strongmen and autocrats such as Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban and want to remake American society in their image.
