We all understand that is the ONLY thing the democrats are about.
That being one's understanding is part and parcel to and reflective of what roots the inadequacy of the cognition of whomever be "we": the "we" construe what is a means as an end. Upon making that mistake, one is consigned to misconstruing the people who use a given means, whatever it be.
Politics is to public policy what marketing is to commercial goods and services. As such, individuals, politicians and political strategists, use the very same methods that marketers and market analysts use to understand their customers.
Successful marketers identify incongruities between actual or perceived wants and needs and the extant solutions presently available to resolve one or more of them. Upon identifying a gap, marketers determine whether they can profitably fill it. One of the tools used to determine whether a gap can be profitably filled is a technique called market segmentation. At this point in process, market segmentation focuses on identifying the nature and extent to which there be convertible latent demand for a resolution to the incongruity.
If the firm's initial segmentation study reveals existential convertible demand, it endeavors next to develop a deeper understanding of its potential customers. It does so by conducting an even more detailed market segmentation study that will allow the firm to understand what be the qualitative and quantitative traits that characterize their potential customers, being careful not to over-refine the analysis whereupon it becomes subject to unresolved aspects of existential etiology between a trait and its expression.
Information obtained from the second case study is then used progressively to design messaging campaigns that appeal most favorably to the various segments of the potential customer base.
- Inform potential customers of the existence of a new solution.
- Inform potential customers of how the marketer's solution fills a gap left open by similar extant solutions.
- Persuade potential customers that the marketer's solution better than other marketers' solutions fills a given gap.
- Boost brand awareness and positivity.
Of course, the firm also uses its market segmentation findings to craft messages that appeal to the broader market without alienating members of the various segments. Indeed, it is these messages that tend to be delivered initially. Once the "mud on the wall" messaging has been deployed, the firm deploys messaging that targets various segments of its potential customer base.
Over time, the firm hones its understanding of its customer base (actual and potential) to the point that the marketer can, by applying quantitative analytical techniques to actual consumption data and the segmentation study data, with a very high degree of accuracy predict what actions consumers having a given set of lifestyle and personality traits will take with regard to the firm's solution offering.
Identity politics is nothing other than the exact same approach described above and applied not to obtaining one's dollars, but rather one's electoral approbation. The technique works because the object to which it applies, the customer, is essentially the same. Consumers of public policy ideas differ from commercial consumers, however, in one material way: potential customers of goods and services that are very important to them will undertake a somewhat thorough research process to understand the solution offerings available to them, whereas consumers of public policy ideas mostly don't conduct any analysis, let alone rigorous analysis, beyond relying on what "someone on a TV screen" tells them. Consequently, the marketer's, a politician's, messages are taken as legitimate provided someone whom the consumer trusts advocates for it. What establishes trust/distrust in politics? Mostly the appellation of a party label; political legitimacy derives guilt or glory based mostly on the specious reasoning of guilt by association.
