Positioning, Oppositioning, Gender & Political Statements. Part 2

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc. / LMMiami.com

• When Al Ries and Jack Trout came up with the concept of “positioning” back in the early 80s they used 7Up as the perfect example.
• 7UP, they claimed, had carved a solid market niche for itself by “positioning” itself as the opposite of cola.
• The “uncola”.
• Cut to 2016.
• Last week I elaborated on a friend of mine’s driving dilemma: his car lease is about to expire.
• He’s shopping around and he’s afraid he might end up at the wheel of an emasculated vehicle.
• In his man-child’s mind there’re no manly cars left to choose from.
• Dude’s in despair because he sees soccer moms arriving at the mall driving Porsche SUVs.
• He wants -needs- a make and model a woman would never be seen driving.
• An “unwomanly” set of wheels.
• Positioning by opposition.
• Or, to use the pretentious portmanteau I coined last week, “oppositioning”.
• Speaking of which, and since we are in the middle of a heated presidential campaign, let’s move on to politics.
• The so-called art of the possible.
• And possibly the field of human activity where “oppositioning” manifests itself in its most exacerbated form.*
• Disclaimer: whether you are a Democrat or a Republican and you’re easily offended, stop reading here.
• As we are clearly witnessing these days, politics has finally morphed into marketing.
• With its usual dose of class, gender, sexual and ethnic warfare in the equation.
• You know what they say: politics is showbiz for ugly people.
• They also say all politics is local.
• I believe all politics is identity politics.
• It rarely is about ideas or values.
• Course not.
• It’s all about interests and a sense of belonging.
• Oppositioning.
• As in “I am a Democrat so I’ll oppose everything a Republican does or says”.
• And vice versa.
• Examples?
• Sure.
• When I came to this country in the late 90s, to NYC to be precise, Young & Rubicam’s HR department referred me to their go-to immigration lawyer to obtain the visa that’d allow them to gainfully employ me.
• The paperwork proved to be extremely trying: slow, annoying, confusing, mired in red tape.
• Thankfully, Y&R was footing the bill.
• The lawyer, a preppy type with a mid Atlantic accent and a lavish office overlooking Central Park, told me that it was so difficult and cumbersome to get me my work permit because those “damn Democrats in Congress are a bunch of protectionists who hate competition from foreign skilled and unskilled labor. If the Republicans were in charge it’d be totally different because they are pro-business and they understand how the economy and the real world work”.
• Fair enough.
• Surprisingly though, twenty years later the tide has changed and it’s the Republicans who seem to have gone apeshit protectionist and borderline xenophobic.
• The very same party that, during Ronald Reagan’s tenure, passed an amnesty law and granted a path to citizenship to millions of undocumented immigrants.
• How come?
• Oppositioning.
• We’re talking about THE Ronald Reagan, the revered conservative demigod, twice governor of California and eight-year occupant of the White House, who we sometimes tend to forget had been a vocal, card-carrying Democrat until the tender age of 50**.
• Another example?
• Sure: behold the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
• Here’s a treaty that took years, decades, generations to negotiate, aimed at strengthening and bringing together Canada, the US and México as one big community & economic block.
• Free movement of goods and labor.***
• Yet an awful lot of Dems (unabashed protectionist Bernie Sanders being one of the most vocal among them) oppose it with some bullshit pretexts about workers’ rights.
• And now the GOP, the party of free trade and free market economy, opposes it too!
• Because?
• Because MEXICANS.
• And because the GOP can’t stomach the fact that the Clintons championed it in the first place.
• As they do the TPP (the Trans Pacific Partnership) which would extend NAFTA-like free trade to another dozen countries in Latin America, Asia and Oceania.
• Another treaty aimed at reducing the backward red tape of protectionism and fostering free trade, opposed nevertheless by the GOP simply because the Obama administration stewarded it.
• Which is a curious self-sabotaging oppositionist contradiction too because the TPP is a geopolitical maneuver to block the hemispheric influence of that other bogeyman keeping Donald Trump up at night: China.****
• Let’s say it out loud, an awful lot of American workers hate, and are seriously scared of, competition.
• Not unlike an awful lot of American industrialists.
• And media moguls.
• And bankers.
• And farmers.
• And doctors.
• I warned you: if you’re easily offended this column was not for you.
• To be continued next week.

*Oppositioning should not be confused with what’s known in politics as obstructionism. The latter is a deliberate bargaining tactic sometimes used to prevent a rival faction from taking credit for something. The former is a self-righteous delusion.
**His explanation was signature Gipper wit: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.” He could turn a phrase the old fox.
***One of NAFTA’s goals is to help Mexico become a more stable nation. Politically, economically, socially. Therefore helping Mexicans pursue a life of safety, opportunity, prosperity and rule of law in their OWN home country. Catch my drift? Why on earth would anyone, Mexican or American, liberal or conservative, oppose it?
****The other bogeyman keeping the Donald tweeting late at night? Actually she’s a bogeywoman: former Miss Venezuela & Miss Universe Alicia Machado. Aka as Miss Piggy & Miss Housekeeping.