When Brands Drive Out Truth: Law Professor Ciara Torres-Spelliscy on Political Brands, Fake News, Dark Money, and Quid Pro Quos

Law professor Ciara Torres-Spelliscy has a provocative and vitally important new book called Political Brands that documents the erosion of trust and truth in political discourse, a kind of Gresham’s Law of information, with fake news driving out genuine facts. In an interview, Professor Torres-Spelliscy talked about the Supreme Court decisions that have led to this deterioration of trust in authorities and how branding has eclipsed the kind of information that makes thoughtful, constructive policies more difficult to develop.

You define branding as “the process of purposefully repeating a word, concept or logo until it gets stuck in the minds of the public.” We think of branding for consumer products. How has that, to use your word “infected” political communications?

Many politicians over the years have used branding techniques, like repetition, to sell themselves to voters during an election or to sell policies between elections. Before Trump, the last great political brander was Barack Obama, especially during his 2008 run for the presidency where he focused on themes of “hope and change.” Obama’s branding was also picked up in Shepard Fairey’s wood-block-style viral poster of Obama’s bust complete with…