This Charming Politician

New Ways of Selling Politics

French President Emmanuel Macron taking a selfie (Twitter)

Political communication was a class I really enjoyed in my college days. We had one of those professors whose rhetorical skills would keep us awake, interested and concentrated on any matter we would discuss. Witty remarks, lucid approaches and innovative ways to explain the theory is something every student wishes to hear. He taught us how marketing aspects of politics are as important as all the other ones. After all, why would parties invest so much in it if it was not relevant to their potential voters? History taught us many lessons on the topic, and philosophers, thinkers and artists understood the relevance of the issue.

There were many articles addressing the jobs of political consultants, spin doctors and advisors. They were either praised for setting up new paradigms, such as Alastair Campbell with the New Labour, or criticised for failed tactics, as in the recent case of Martin Schulz and his SPD party. The most important example is probably the US presidential debate of John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, back in 1960. A presidential debate was televised for the first time and brought Kennedy the victory due to his charisma, style and appearance. In the UK, selling politics is iconic, especially since Saatchi & Saatchi used the Labour Isn’t Working slogan to get Margaret Thatcher elected in 1979.

Nowadays scholars are paying more attention than ever to political campaigns, image and discourse. We are witnessing that European politics is becoming more personalised and focused on image, which is replacing the more traditional ways of spreading the message. The year 2016 has brought us new ways of handling campaigns, mostly through the infamous Brexit, and of course through the notorious example of Donald Trump. After all, the term post-truth politics was chosen as the Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year.

The most recent campaign in Austria, which brought significant changes to the country’s political landscape, was marked by the young leader Sebastian Kurz, and shows us how young leaders are now becoming fashionable in Europe. Kurz has been criticized for being opportunistic, evolving from an integration secretary with an urban-conservative background to a right-winger. However, Kurz, who has been labelled by some pundits as a right-wing version of Emmanuel Macron, proves that image is becoming stronger than ever. Highly popular Kurz personalised the campaign, and his opponents did not stand a chance. Social democrat Christian Kern played on the card of economy, but failed to approach the young voters. At the same time, populist Heinz-Christian Strache became aware that he is already popular with the young voters, and switched from an image of doing rap songs and attending night clubs to wearing serious suits and glasses, trying to gain support from middle-age and older voters.

Voting motives for the main Austrian political parties (Der Standard)

Sebastian Kurz has basically renamed and rebranded his party, changed the party colours from black to turquoise and attracted many young people to an otherwise serious conservative party. Kurz very clearly understands the contemporary trends, and shows true political talent. In the case of Emmanuel Macron, talent is more than obvious. He recognized the gaps in French politics, which he immediately filled. However, unlike Kurz, who took the existing party infrastructure, Macron’s movement is seen exclusively through him. Macron’s party posters in the French parliamentary elections had to explicitly state that Macron stands behind the candidate, so that the voters do not get confused.

The image of these leaders is clearly emphasized through their style, attitude and appearance. Macron’s recent speech in Sorbonne, surrounded by students and French/EU flags, is a perfect example of how PR is done. Macron himself has shown his subtle political messages many times, by promoting the EU with the Ode to Joy while walking in the Louvre, or playing Daft Punk when Donald Trump paid a visit, in order to show that he is a proponent of modern and progressive France. Even his choice of ties, which are mostly thin and dark, show the complete opposite of the wide and aggressive red ties of Donald Trump. However, it remains to be seen how his image of former investment banker can cope with the current labour reform protests in France.

Young leaders try to cater to people by showing that they are not perfect, by stating mistakes from the past or some difficulties that regular people face every day. Hence, in the recent Der Spiegel interview a reader could learn that Macron is a struggling novel writer, while the German FDP leader Christian Lindner told us a story in some other interview how he used to be an obese teenager and then changed his diet and started to run regularly. The image factor, in order to attract voters, can explain how a young lesbian with trendy glasses and a Goldman Sachs background is leading a German populist right party. The case of Alice Weidel only shows us how image became important in contemporary politics.

This unexpected image was fostered with the Irish ruling party Fine Gael as well, which tries to attract new voters through its new cosmopolitan leader Leo Varadkar, replacing the old school Enda Kenny. Varadkar is LGBT and of an ethnic minority background, and the party is hoping to attract new voters from these groups. Next year’s referendum initiative to change the abortion law is going in that direction. At the same time, he has been accused by the critics of pushing the party economically to the right. The pioneers of the unexpected image aspect could be traced back to the far-right Sweden Democrats, whose leader Jimmie Åkesson looks like an average young businessman that enjoys an after-work beer in one of those fancy Central Stockholm pubs. The list could go on and on. For the upcoming Italian elections, the 5-star movement is also preparing a youngster line-up, as it proved to be successful in the case of Rome Mayoral elections. After all, it’s the image, stupid!

Jesse Klaver, leader of the Dutch Green Left (The Post Online)