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Lessons in Propaganda: What Politicians Learned from Business

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I am hardly the first to note the application of PR principles to politics. Nor is it a new observation. Kennedy and Nixon had their communications advisors; Lincoln read books on rhetoric—ancient Greeks wrote them.

We now see it in mind-numbing three-word phrases printed, Louis Vuitton-like, on backdrops behind the Presidential podium; in the evolution of “talking points” from a novelty phrase during Monica-gate to commonplace today; and in the devolution of the Cabinet from advisory body to vehicle for staying “on-message.”

Many call this a failing of George Bush or of a Republican administration (though the Clintons know this material well too), or a misapplication or perversion of business principles.

But that’s not quite right. Politicians haven’t misappropriated business lessons—they borrowed directly, main-lining their Big Brother 1984 lessons from the very heart of what has come to be called business best practices.

The problem isn’t cynical politicians twisting business ideas; it is cynical business ideas themselves, granted mainstream legitimacy by business opinion leaders—the business media, business schools, industry associations, and business leaders themselves. Politicians are just following.

Take four common terms: “on message,” “brand,” “alignment,” and “communication.” Now think Marketing 101 (or any CEO’s speech), and see how familiar this sounds:

In this consumer-empowered, media-cluttered age, the company that understands customer needs and communicates its message the best is the one that will survive in this hyper-competitive market.

Consumers have less and less patience and attention span: companies need to develop a coherent branding message—the same on the web, in stores, and in ads—about who they are and what they can do for the customer.

A company not completely aligned around its core value proposition and the message it communicates about that proposition will fail. Sales collateral must be on-message with marketing’s branding; incentives must align with company strategy; measurements must track missions, aggregating to sustainable competitive advantage.

Even marketers—professional cynics—are taken aback by the success of a current ad campaign. You’ve seen it / heard it:

Apply directly to the forehead—apply directly to the forehead—apply directly to the forehead.

Blunt force repetitive trauma to the brain. Think Orwell. Goebbels. Big Brother. The Big Lie.

From there, it’s a quick trip to “we’re in Iraq to stop Al-Qaeda from invading Kansas,” with flight jacket and aircraft carrier backdrop.

Massive repetition works. Better than we like to admit. “Brainwashing” is just a value-laden term for what politely passes as “alignment” and “on-message” in the corporate setting. Even “shared values” brushes uncomfortably close to the same territory.

Reggae rapper Shaggy parodied this angle a few years ago in the song “It Wasn’t Me.” Seeking advice after having been caught in flagrante by his girlfriend, he’s told, “Just say ‘It wasn’t me’.” Repeat it often enough and you can get away with anything. Was he being ironic? Or just astute? (Did he help Larry Craig and OJ come up with “I’m not gay” and “it was my stuff”?)

Mainstream marketing and business 101 teach companies to simplify, refine, and focus on one message and mission, then design the whole organization to apply massive force to the fulcrum point of the customer.

The result is called “tuned,” “focused,” “aligned, “and—most chilling—a perversion of “customer-centric.” Apply directly to the marketing. Apply directly to the marketing. Apply directly to the marketing.

There is nothing “wrong” with these techniques per se—the means, in this case, are value-neutral. It is the ends to which they are put—the motives—that matter.

Unfortunately, Roger Ailes, Turdblossom et al didn’t have to translate the business play book to politics. They copied directly. Both have become about winning against other competitors/candidates—not about helping consumers/voters. Bombardment of the consumer/voter with simple messages is good for quitting smoking or announcing emergency traffic routes. For selling pharmaceuticals, wars and presidents? Not so much.

In business, it’s reach and frequency—in politics, it’s being on-message. Tax and spend. Support our troops. Apply directly to the amygdala.

The problem in business and politics is identical. Both have become all about competition and winning—not about consumers and voters. Both have turned the legitimate concept of “customer focus” from a goal into a tactic, linking it tightly to quarterly earnings and the two-year election cycle.

Business has turned "customer focus" into a codeword for tweak, massage and manipulate.

Modern marketing practices flaunt the dictionary, Shaggy-like, when they turn "communication"—formerly defined as "exchange of information"—into the one-way megaphone of "apply directly to the forehead."

At root, this is a failure of belief systems. We are teaching an ideology of short-term me-me-me-ism in business, and our politicians are drinking the same Kool-Aid. For those who think this brand of “competition” is what makes for a successful economy—take a look at the falling US dollar. A focus on commerce, not on competition, is what makes an economy great. We’ve gotten it backwards.

Don’t blame George Bush, Republican; blame George Bush, MBA President. Until the B-schools start preaching networks, collaboration, transparency and commerce in their strategy classes instead of in their so-called “ethics” classes, we in business have no right to complain about the politicians.
 

Trusted Politicians

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Sound like an oxymoron?

There’s good reason for that.  Not just in fact, but in principle, it is hard to square politics with trust. Trusting a politician may be an exercise in pre-meditated resentment.

Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara once said,  referring to interacting with the press, “never answer the question you are asked; always answer the question you wanted to be asked.”

That may or may not be a good recipe for politicians; it is certainly bad advice for anyone who would be trusted. It speaks volumes to the desire to control others’ opinions, refuse to engage, and to willingness to appear evasive.

Mark Twain’s comment, “Congress is the only distinctly criminal class” is typical of our desire to believe otherwise—and our continued disappointment when the next politician reveals his colors. “Meet the new boss—same as the old boss,” sang Roger Daltrey years ago.

There’s a reason. Politics requires a continual calculation of how to align with the majority. A minority politician is, pretty soon, a losing politician. Passing legislation requires convincing others; getting elected requires convincing others. The art (or science, increasingly) of politics is combining effective majorities across various issues, while minimizing the perception of the minorities as being on the other side.

That means there is virtually no single principle that a successful politician can afford to consistently endorse.

Yet all the while, we engage with politicians in a mutual conspiracy to deny that this is the case. We insist on believing that politicians believe in principle; and they in turn use the language of principle, in order to gain our votes.

Then we become outraged in the cases when politicians are caught violating their principles—whether it’s Republican homophobes caught with their pants down, or Democratic social liberals invested in subprime mortgages.

Logically, we should not be enraged. Humanly, we are. Because we want to trust, and trust requires some measure of consistency around principles.

The answer may lie partly in losing our innocence. Trust in politics arguably requires term limits. Only lame ducks can afford to vote from principle.

On the other hand, to surrender to cynicism and accept politics as merely an exercise in coalition-building is to move in the direction of single-issue politics—abandoning the middle, and any hope for unity.

Or, to continue to hope for the best—a politician with just enough principles and persuasive capability to actually sway opinion. To create a majority where none existed.  A real leader, in short.

Well, hope springs eternal.