Using marketing tactics to gain political power:  Black Hat or White Hat?

As marketers, we grow sales and revenue by increasing market share and by increasing the size of the market itself.  So, in addition to convincing consumers to choose our product over our competitors, we try to attract consumers to the product category itself.  Dunlop wants more people playing tennis, in addition to convincing them to choose their racquets and balls over Wilson and Prince.

Similarly, political parties use the same philosophy to increase their power by growing the voter base instead of just convincing current voters that their policies are best.  They want more people voting who tend to agree with their policies.  Therefore, we’ve seen white hat tactics like voter registration and get out the vote drives for years.

However, what do you think of the push for open borders, generous benefits for illegal immigrants, and liberal voting laws?  Is that black hat marketing?  Do you think they are trading the security of our country and our elections for their own political power?

A similar question arises when discussing the control of seats of power like the Senate and Supreme Court.  Instead of using constitutional, white hat strategies such as winning elections, there’s talk of using questionable means by increasing the size of these bodies with new seats that tend to vote with them.  Is it a black hat move to grant statehood to the District of Colombia and Puerto Rico to increase the size of the Senate?  Or packing the Supreme Court with judges who will rule in your favor?  Are these legitimate, moral ways to “grow the market” or are they unconstitutional?

How Americans view these policies comes down to how they are marketed, explained, and justified.  If the policies are described in glowing, moralistic terms on mainstream media and in our schools, they can control the narrative and the court of public opinion.  So, you hear legislation with automatic registration, universal mail-in ballots and weakened voter ID laws described as “expanding voter rights” instead of making our elections less secure. That’s good PR and white hat marketing, even though the cynic can easily see how these policies are nothing more than a blatant grab for perpetual power and the ability to control our lives.  But, if dissenting voices are censored, arrested, and libeled, that’s dirty black hat politics and threatens our democracy.  Unfortunately, we’re seeing too much of the later.  Black hat strategy followed by black hat marketing.