Often, marketing & sales is combined into a single entity, not only by the public, but by the organization employing them as well, because they often seem to be the same. But this example may be helpful.
Marketing is the message an organization sends out to advertise its wares. Consider a few of the GOP’s various marketing messages: We’ll lower taxes and raise prosperity; climate change is a lie; regulation is bad; all of the legal indictments and impeachments of former President Trump are hoaxes; we’ll never change abortion rights; fiscal responsibility is our middle name.
Sales is the wares delivered. In the case of the GOP, it has delivered lower taxes for the top 1% of taxpayers while prosperity dropped; the Dobbs decision overturning abortion rights and, consequently, high profile attempts to restrict access to abortion, sometimes successfully; increasing environmental damage from weather & climate, which, in turn, is impacting our economy; increasing Federal deficits that are directly tied to Republican financial policy, implemented when they controlled Congress.
An organization in which marketing and sales is significantly divergent is an organization in trouble. And the thoughtful American public is delivering on this model, as Steve Benen summarizes:
- A combined 65% of Americans believe the charges against Trump are either very or somewhat serious.
- 60% of Americans believe the former president acted inappropriately in the way he handled classified documents after leaving the White House. (The poll found that 1 in 4 Republican voters agree.)
- 60% of Americans believe Trump has left serious questions about the scandal unanswered.
- A narrow 51% majority of Americans agree that Trump should be prosecuted.
To be sure, the results weren’t all bad for the Republican: The Quinnipiac poll found that most Americans agreed that politics have played at least some role in the case.
But those assumptions — which do not appear to have any basis in fact — do not negate the other findings. In other words, most of the country has effectively said, “Politics probably contributed to Trump’s indictment, but it’s a serious prosecution anyway.”
Circling back to our earlier coverage, these results were hardly inevitable. In fact, I wasn’t necessarily expecting them. For months, there’s been a noticeable asymmetry to the public conversation: One side of the political divide has flooded the airwaves with vitriol, insisting an indictment would be proof of a corrupt Justice Department and an unjust system, while the other side has been largely circumspect, saying very little about the suspect, the process and his alleged crimes.
Given this, Americans have generally only heard one side of the argument. As Republicans have screamed bloody murder in defense of Trump, Democrats have largely responded with “Anyone want to talk about infrastructure and the importance of reproductive rights?”
And that’s because the White House has told the Democrats to stay away from the topic, as Benen notes. The President appears to have confidence that, if the message is not obscured or confused by the Democrats, then the indictments being delivered will speak loudly, and without Democratic intercession, there’s less of a chance of Americans disregarding serious legal claims as being political.
Which means that, once more, Republicans are caught with marketing making one assertion, while sales, in rough analogy, is quite a different matter. In essence, this pack of fourth-raters claims Trump is just a bit foul-mouthed, and nothing more; instead, the indictments speak of brazen law-breaking, with more to come.
I look for 2024 to be a blowout, unless Republicans begin adapting to the landscape. That would entail admitting error, though, and the Party backed, quietly as they may whisper it, by God, well, they just can’t do that.
