He would actually explain how campaign contributions translate into corporate welfare and lax regulation, from which, for example, the corporate media secure enormous profits. Such revelations would damage the legitimacy of persuasion. Repeated slogans and manufactured messages lose their authenticity when confronted by alternative information. Even in the absence of an alternative discourse, the public understands that the language is faked and the candidates are actors. But consumer culture finds its way out of this as well.
Postmodern cynicism adopts a critical stance while supporting the persuasive enterprise.
Advertising has learned to wink and nod at us, acknowledging its manipulative intent while making fun of itself and us. Reporters and pundits make fun of the process and the candidates without ever having to mention an alternative. Marketing is not the language of political visionaries. Simple slogans that pass the test of focus groups do not challenge existing economic or social assumptions. Marketing is not a language that can question why so many young black men are in jail, why one out of five children in this country go to bed hungry, or how the death penalty reinforces a culture of revenge and retaliation.