Trump™

Welcome to the age of political branding. Parties become platforms, candidates become brands, election campaigns turn into marketing campaigns: emotionalized, designed, media-ready. To succeed today, you don’t need a program – you need a story. No arguments, just an image. No truth, just recognizability. In this logic, Trump™ is not an exception but an extreme case. A political brand that resists correction and turns every scandal into capital. What began as reality TV became the reality of a nation. And the world. Trump was never a politician. Trump is always a product. Trump™.

From early on, the strategic direction was clear: visually iconic (orange skin tone, red cap, gold lettering), content-wise maximally simple (“Great deals,” “America First,” “Fake News”). The Trump™ brand successfully cultivated a core identity that remained stable – perhaps precisely because of its contradictions: a self-made billionaire with a history of bankruptcies. An anti-establishment candidate with deep establishment ties. A ruthless Christian who pops into church when the cameras are rolling and considers himself not only God’s favorite—but a missed opportunity for the papacy.

The communication strategy is as effective as it is ruthless: reduction, repetition, provocation. Truth is fragmented, bent, or replaced. Only recognizability matters. Trump™ pushes to the limit the oldest rule of strategic communication: Thou shalt not lie. But you don’t always have to tell the truth. Trump doesn’t sell politics, he sells himself. Not a candidacy, but a campaign. Packaging over content, brand over person. Morality? Not even ignored – it just gets in the way of the narrative. Trump doesn’t operate like a traditional politician, but like a meticulously branded project with broadcast instincts. Positions? Constantly replaced by more marketable stories. Brand purpose: maximum value creation for the brand owner. Democratic side effects? Not included in the business model.

The 2024 re-election campaign – crowned with success – made this clear: no political agenda was negotiated here, but a brand campaign was staged. The brand was emotionally charged, rallied old fans, and won new ones because it – like all strong brands – offered an attractive promise: belonging, meaning, dominance. Trump™ as a love brand with an endlessly loyal core clientele and curious, naive casual buyers. The traditional electorate became the target group. Political debate turned into market analysis. And democracy became an advertising space. “Make America Great Again” was never a political program. It was a slogan. And like every good slogan: resonant, empty, resonantly empty.

Since the beginning of his second term, Trump™ has pushed the principle of brand extension to the limit: appointing loyalists to cultural institutions, weakening the independent judiciary, dismantling institutional checks and balances – all following a logic known from global corporations: When the traditional home market shrinks, expansion into the unknown, the unused, and the unregulated becomes attractive. The gaze turns outward: Greenland as a geopolitical claim, Canada as an ideological enemy, Panama as a logistical hub. The Trump™ brand expands abroad to keep the domestic market shrinkage (“white, Christian, male”) marketable: Make America Small Again.

The design remains familiar: staging of enemies, moral inversion of facts, constant self-promotion. Political opponents are branded as counterfeiters. Criticism is treated as defamation. Everything becomes part of the show. The brand feeds on scandal. And the scandal is the product. Consumers who resist are seen as a threat. Loyalty is no longer voluntary but demanded. The political brand experience becomes ideological coercion. While the brand flourishes, the constitution quietly vanishes from the stage – nation branding as a PR-friendly disguise for the slow internal decay of democracy.

So what to do? Enlightenment alone seems insufficient. Facts roll off the Trump™ brand like water off Teflon. Satire loses its edge when reality surpasses it. The political competition offers only two responses: adaptation or despair. Resistance then becomes possible only in the spirit of: We have no chance. Let’s use it!

The brand analysis in summary: First, Trump™ can still be analyzed objectively. Then ironically. Eventually, only cynicism remains: the campaign as system, the system as campaign. And finally, sarcasm: a branding strategy that leads to authoritarian self-dissolution. Maybe humor helps us endure it – but the laughter chokes. The branding is poisoned. And the punchline? Deadly serious.

With little hope, only a modest proposal remains: Retire Trump™ as a Limited Edition. No re-release. No collector’s item.