In a marketplace, products are marketed, presented, and promoted in a way that makes them look appealing and useful to the people targeted to buy and consume them. Nowadays, politics operates on the same principle. Politicians frame themselves in a way that ensures everything they project aligns with a target audience, as if they are products to be sold and consumed. They are strategically presented so that the audience is compelled to vote.
Persona Over Policy
People no longer vote primarily for political agendas, policies, and notions that certain politicians promise. Politics has transformed into being more about the individual persona of a leader than the policies they support and promise. Politicians work on personal branding in order to be perceived in a certain way, knowing that people blindly follow leaders who simply seem to have charisma and an influential personality, rather than focusing on how their policies would impact them. Certain politicians preach ideologies all while acting against them. There are those who preach against conformity; yet, paradoxically, they are the ones whose working agendas are the manifestation of the very notion they oppose.
Images, Bias, and Blind Loyalty
During elections, people tend to be biased while voting. They do not vote for individuals whose ideologies align with theirs and whose policies they deem effective. Instead, they vote for the most appealing image. They mindlessly vote for one specific party every time because they have been voting for them since forever. Political debates revolve around individual leaders rather than political ideologies now, as if the leaders are authentic beings with static ideas who will definitely act in accordance with the beliefs a supporter holds of them. Once a leader is known for being a certain way, they are supported for that very image regardless of the political acts they exercise and the policies they come up with. People end up justifying their actions once they form a positive belief about them.
Certain politicians manipulate people in a way that demands absolute loyalty from them. People do not just vote and support; they tend to go off limits not for the agenda promised, but for the individual himself. In the name of protest, people end up attacking and burning governmental buildings built by the taxes they themselves paid — they are jailed, murdered, and taken into custody, yet they remain ready to go to any extent just to prove their loyalty towards the politician who is meant to serve us, not the other way around.
Slogans, Anthems, and Spectacle
It is dangerously powerful how political branding works on supporters and how politicians use it in their favour. Politicians tend to preach about vague ideologies and notions without having a clear idea of them or a framework on how they would bring them into practice. They simply throw out political jargon and build their political ideologies around certain ideas. Certain slogans end up being what the politicians are known for, and people do not question much about the implementation of those ideas. They vote because they resonate with the symbols associated with the political parties they support.
The anthems for political parties and their campaigns are made to be catchy and fun so that people associate joy with them. When elections are near, certain politicians even pull off popularity stunts, such as saying things that attract audience attention, serve as a source of entertainment, and make them appear easy-going and authentic. While voting, voters remember a candidate’s slogans, viral videos, and political anthems far more than their political agenda.