Copyright The Gateway Pundit
BILL MAHER, HBO: And finally, New Rule. Since it’s Halloween, I must tell you all a ghost story. And this one is really scary. It’s not about the kind of ghost that rattles your chains or turns your lights on and off or, you know, lends a sensual helping hand with your pottery. No, this kind of ghost sells dishwashers. Or at least it did. Yes, I’m talking about a ghost brand. A ghost brand, that’s a company or a store that, like Sears, still exists, but only as a pathetic shell of its former self. The brands that make you say, oh, they’re still making that? Because they screwed themselves out of relevance, and now their logos haunt us, wandering, neither alive nor dead, like Mitch McConnell. I’m talking about brands like Kodak, Polaroid, Radio Shack, GE, Atari, and RCA. They still have value, because name recognition is a huge asset, and so is nostalgia. You trust Hitachi to make a magic wand, because Mom had one. And let’s leave it at that. But it’s not where you want to be as a business, barely surviving on old customer habit, with just enough juice in the name to still slap it on something and sell it somewhere. That somewhere being a street vendor’s table in Chengdu, where you can get a Playboy keychain for a dollar. Yes, the cautionary tale of the ghost brand is an important one, because it applies not only to business, but also to politics. I fear the Democratic Party is at risk of becoming a ghost brand, too. Like Sears, it used to be mighty and ascendant and popular. Sears once accounted for 1% of the entire American economy, and 41% of the appliance market, and built the country’s tallest tower. Democrats once controlled Congress and the Supreme Court, or were at least competitive. But now, even at a time when President Trump is turning 250 years of democracy into jeans shorts, the Democrats have their lowest rating in 35 years, 63% unfavorable.
