That said, what happens as the techniques of marketing and advertising spill over into politics?
Advertising, like all propaganda, tends to work despite your will and reason. It wants to work around your reason. It’s not persuasion. Sometimes people in advertising like to say they’re in the business of persuasion. It’s not persuasion. They want it to work on a much more visceral level than the persuasive level. They’re not arguing with us. They’re trying to push our buttons. They’re trying to bring a tear to the eye, trying to give you a hunger pang, trying to make you mad. Now, these same tricks are used routinely by political handlers and by political parties. The Republican Party, for example, seems to trade in almost nothing but resentment and anger. That’s what it’s about. There’s nothing coherent or logical about it. How can you have a democracy, a, when all the stuff you’re taking in about the outside world actually is kind of subjugated to the purpose of selling products? You’re going to get a very poor picture of reality that way. And b, what kind of a democracy can you h
