This is a really big deal: It’s the Democrats' third brand change in the last 50 years. Yet this change is dramatically different from the other two.
And the consequences are transformational.
But first, a short detour: Since Team USA was bounced from the World Cup and we don’t have to pretend to like soccer anymore, let’s revisit the flawed-yet-great baseball movie, The Natural. This scene isn’t nearly as iconic as the lightbulb-exploding stadium moment at the very end (because in Hollywood, that’s how electricity works), but it’s a clever philosophical moment:
Iris Gaines: I believe we have two lives.
Roy Hobbes: What do you mean?
Iris Gaines: The life we learn with, and the life we live with after that.
Ah, the duality of man. Very poetic: The former shapes the latter, but it doesn’t control it. What happens next is entirely up to you.
It’s also an excellent way to think about PR, because there’s almost always a duality: who you are, and who audiences think you are. In an ideal world, your brand identity is an exaggerated version of your real, actual identity — with your most appealing attributes accentuated.
Brands get in trouble when they veer too far from reality. It triggers a branding misalignment that shatters trust and squanders goodwill, because audiences resent being deceived. (“You can’t fool all the people all the time.”) Over the long-term, it’s a losing PR strategy.
So, when the reality of who you are changes, your brand identity must change with it.
Which takes us to the Democratic Party: Fifty years ago, its brand identity was being the party of the working man. At the time, the branding made sense: Lots of union members really, truly were loyal Democrats — as were day laborers, non-degreed workers, and blue-collar employees. (Conversely, the executives and business owners were assumed to be Republicans.)
Back then, the Dems' “sales pitch” wasn’t ideological; it was representational: The Democratic Party was (mostly) a coalition party. A West Coast environmentalist had little in common with a New Jersey dockworker, but they both agreed that the Democratic Party was the best vehicle to champion their interests.
And so, they voted together.
That all changed during the Obama years. The Donkeys ceased being the working man’s party and became — unapologetically — an ideologically driven movement. And that ideology, of course, was liberalism.
At least, at first.
Because ideologies never stand still. They evolve. By the 2010s, the #MeToo movement merged with the Democratic Party, which led to women (especially college-educated, unmarried women) being its most important voting bloc.
The Democrats aggressively branded themselves as archenemies of the evil Patriarchy. They became the “Believe All Women” party. By 2020, Dem presidential nominee Joe Biden promised to pick a female running mate — and nominate a (black) female Supreme Court justice. (Which he did.) Phrases like “toxic masculinity” entered our lexicon.
Meanwhile, the Dems tried to brand the GOP as the party of Nazis, rapists, misogynists, abusers, Neanderthals, toxic men, and Handmaid’s Tale religious loons. It was their go-to line of attack.
But nature (and political PR) abhors a vacuum, and in 2016, Donald Trump and the MAGA movement captured the lion’s share of the working-class male voters that the Democrats had abandoned. Leading Dems blamed the loss on Joe Rogan, podcasters, and the “manosphere,” but they should’ve looked in the mirror: This was 100% on them.
We’re not the ones who changed their brand. They did it on their own!
Conservative Republicans — plus all the (male) voters the Dems had abandoned — became the heart and soul of MAGA. We couldn’t have won control of the White House and Congress without ‘em. (Thanks, guys!)
And this was the PR law of the land — right until Monday afternoon.
The amount of damage that Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner has inflicted on the Democrats' brand is simply extraordinary. It’s probably the most underreported story in politics today. There’s just no credible way the Dems can pretend to be a Nazi-hating, pro-woman party when they’ve spent months wrapping their brand around a Nazi-tatted, woman-abusing, foul-mouthed rapist (allegedly).
They can try. (In fact, I’d be shocked if they don’t! Hey, as recently as 2024, the Dems tried to pretend they were still the same party that championed the cause of hardworking men, day laborers, and blue-collar workers.)
But it didn’t work in 2024 because the message and their brand were grotesquely misaligned.
In yesterday’s column, where I took a victory lap for my June 1 Platner prediction coming true, I made two new predictions. The first pertained to Graham Platner personally:
[H]ere’s what will happen next:
First, Platner will leverage his position on Maine’s ballot for a golden parachute. He knows the DNC needs him to drop out by July 13, so he’ll maximize his goodie bag before he agrees to leave.
That probably means:
- Having a say in which Maine Democrat will replace him. (He’ll push for the most progressive option available.)
- Landing a high-paying, sweetheart job in the DNC or a left-wing PAC/thinktank. (If the Dems are going to spend $50+ million to win this seat, handing Platner $500K for a no-show job to get out of the way is chump change.)
I’m guessing he’ll value #2 a helluva lot more than #1, which means “follow the money.” Without a hefty bribe, Platner is probably better off continuing his campaign — and hoping he gets lucky — than quitting as a disgraced, Nazi-tatted, foul-mouthed rapist.
Interestingly, the Platner part of my prediction has already been validated. Yesterday evening, the New York Post ran the story, “Graham Platner Holding Dem Party Hostage — Refusing to Drop Out Unless He Gets to Name Successor: Sources.”
A few hours later, Politico ran a follow-up story that elaborated:
One person familiar with the discussions between Platner’s campaign and its progressive allies, granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations, told POLITICO that Platner would stay in the race unless his replacement came from his wing of the party.
I think #1 and #2 are actually connected: Platner can’t come out and admit he’d holding out for a big bag of money, so justifying his “deliberations” as nobly/unselfishly protecting the interests of his far-left supporters is his fig leaf.
“C’mon, guys, I’m doing all this for you!”
But I’m less interested in Platner’s personal future than the Democratic Party’s: Now that it can’t credibly brand itself as the anti-Nazi, “Believe All Women” party, what happens next?
Its old brand is done. Platner killed it. (But not singlehandedly: If his candidacy had been spurned by Dem leaders, party kingpins, and left-wing tastemakers, the damage would’ve been limited. It was embracing Platner right up to the bitter end — wrapping their arms around him and lovingly calling him “My kind of man” — that delivered the deathblow.)
Ding dong, the old brand is dead!
But that doesn’t mean the Democratic Party is dead. Because it’s not.
It means the Democratic Party brand will become something new.
This is a party, after all, that explicitly rejects patriotism and the concept of American exceptionalism. It loves socialism. It hates capitalism, billionaires, and (most of all) MAGA Republicans. And its soul is now 100%, unapologetically Machiavellian: Win at all costs, because the ends justify the means.
If we’ve gotta support a Nazi rapist to regain power, then that’s what we’ll do!
The evolving image of the new Democratic brand — which was born this week — should send a shiver down your spine: It’s now the political party of class warfare and the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.
A left-wing version of “Make America Great Again” would fall on deaf ears, because today’s Dems reject the premise that America was ever great — or even deserves greatness. Instead, our country is a rigged con-game, and the only solution is to tear the damn thing down.
That’s disastrous for establishment Democrats.
But it’s PERFECT brand alignment for the Democratic Socialists of America.
And that’s how it’ll go. First the Democrats' old brand fell. Then goes the establishment.
Next goes the party.
It’s happening in slow motion, but make no mistake: It’s absolutely happening.
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First. It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battle lines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
We need your help to succeed!
As a PJ Media VIP member, you’ll receive exclusive access to our behind-the-paywall content, commenting privileges, and an ad-free experience. VIP Gold gets you the same level of “insider access” across our entire family of sites (PJ Media, Townhall, RedState, twitchy, Hot Air, and Bearing Arms). That means: More stories, more videos, more content, more fun, more conservatism, more EVERYTHING!
And if you CLICK HERE and use the promo code FIGHT you’ll receive a Trumpian 60% discount!
Thank you for your consideration.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member