Trump Seems Much Better at Branding Opponents Than Marketing Policies

Donald J. Trump, the master brander, has never found quite the right selling point for his party’s health care plan.

He has promised “great healthcare,” “truly great healthcare,” “a great plan” and health care that “will soon be great.” But for a politician who has shown remarkable skill distilling his arguments into compact slogans — “fake news,” “witch hunt,” “Crooked Hillary” — those health care pitches have fallen far short of the kind of sharp, memorable refrain that can influence how millions of Americans interpret news in Washington.

Analyzing two years of his tweets highlights a pair of lessons about his messaging prowess that were equally on display as the Republican health care bill, weakly supported by even Republican voters, collapsed again in Congress on Monday. Mr. Trump is much better at branding enemies than policies. And he expends far more effort mocking targetsthan promoting items on his agenda.

Both patterns point to the limits of the president’s branding powers when it comes to waging policy fights. He hasn’t proved particularly adept at selling his party’s ideas — or shown much inclination to turn his Twitter megaphone toward them. He seemed effective in branding his immigration policy during the primary campaign — #BuildTheWall — but even that subject has occupied less of Mr. Trump’s attention on Twitter since he became president than, say, CNN.

By contrast, dating to the campaign, Mr. Trump has been deft at branding his opponents. There is no definitive canon of Mr. Trump’s messaging, but his Twitter feed serves as a reasonable proxy: It’s the social media account he’s best known for, and his use of it helped propel his candidacy. We’ve kept our tabulation of his Twitter insults current throughout his presidency. Using them as a guide – beginning in June 2015, when he declared his candidacy – you’ll notice patterns in how he refers to his political opponents.

Consider Hillary Clinton:

The word choice is memorable. But it’s also the repetition that’s important. In its simplicity and consistency, that message is textbook marketing, said William Cron, a professor of marketing at Texas Christian University. “This is what the product stands for,” he said (Mrs. Clinton being the product in this case). Marketing research also suggests that the more we’re exposed to a belief or a brand, the more likely we are to believe that others share or use it. And so by repeating the slogan, Mr. Trump also feeds the notion that Mrs. Clinton is widely believed to be crooked.

Psychologists have another term for what Mr. Trump does here that is so effective. He “essentializes” Mrs. Clinton and his other opponents, like Lyin’ Ted Cruz.

His use of this phrase implies a subtle but important distinction: It’s not merely that Mr. Cruz tells lies; rather, lying is essential to who Ted Cruz is.

Mrs. Clinton didn’t just commit a crime (in Mr. Trump’s telling); she’s crooked to the core.

Elizabeth Warren doesn’t simply espouse foolish ideas, in his argument; she can’t be taken seriously at all.

This is the important difference between using a descriptive verb (“Ted Cruz tells lies”) and a noun label (“Lyin’ Ted”). Such minor manipulations of language, psychological research shows, can convey much more deep-seated, stable and central characteristics about a subject. And these labels preclude other identities.