electoral arena has more in common with consumer brand market competition than it does to an academic symposium on immigration policy or a non-profit funded public awareness campaign

I wholeheartedly agree with this point. Great job for highlighting it. The “Great Courses” doesn’t have millions of followers. Kim Kardashian does!

But, this point also baffles me, as it should baffle Democrats and the Democratic party.

It is generally assumed that the startup and tech communities lean liberal and vote Democrat. I founded a med device startup and spent a great deal of time with startups and investors in San Francisco and New York City. So I know firsthand that this assumption is not incorrect. But if that’s the case, why hasn’t the startup culture influenced the Democratic Party?

By nature, startups need to get out of the building and spread their brand, at least those that do it well. They don’t have time for thesis and treatises because they either don’t have any funding or their funding is running out fast. So branding is what they do, particularly to consumers — just think Netflix, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Amazon. None of these ventures were based on academic, deep-think strategies. They launched, received consumer feedback, relaunched, received more feedback, and did it again, and again, and again. And most of their employees lean… yeah, I think I can say this with confidence, Democrat.

So why hasn’t their consumer-driven business and branding culture seeped into the Democratic Party’s electoral machine?