The Right Has a Marketing Problem

2025 has been a year of plot twists, tragedies and the occasional hard-won victory. One bittersweet development has been the quiet convergence of the Left and Right around a single question: do you wish to live under an authoritarian state or a libertarian one? Since the authoritarian extremes sit at both ends of the spectrum – political ‘upside down’ territories that mirror our world in its darkest form – this shift is hardly surprising. More and more people have found themselves asking a very old question in very modern terms: do you want the state to run your life, or do you want the freedom to decide what is best for yourself and your family?

And here’s where marketing comes in. Politics is, at its core, a sales and marketing challenge. Whose message resonates? Whose story feels compelling? Whose promises are easiest to grasp? Election manifestos are essentially glossy brochures for competing fantasies.

For decades, the Left has mastered this art. It helps that most creative industries lean Left, giving Left-wing parties endless storytellers, image-makers and emotional engineers to make use of. That’s harmless enough when they’re designing theatre sets or billboards, but far darker when they’re shaping the future of a strained and fragile nation, especially one with millions of young voters who haven’t yet developed the experience to detect political manipulation. 

Picture it: a young, vulnerable woman falling for an overconfident covert narcissist. They tell you they understand your struggles – and then they tell you exactly who to blame (spoiler: it’s not them).

Their sales pitch is seductive: resentment without responsibility. Not where you hoped to be in life? Feeling the world is unfair? Don’t worry – it’s not about your choices, your effort or your sacrifices. It’s the fault of ‘the rich’, ‘the corporations’, ‘the landlords’ or whatever convenient oppressor is in season. Give us your vote, they whisper, and we’ll rebalance the world in your favour. We’ve seen how this logic plays out historically – the kulaks of Ukraine learned its brutality first-hand during Lenin’s ‘dekulakisation’.

And if resentment isn’t enough, the Left has a second product: a handcrafted utopia. Vote for us and everyone will be equal. There will be abundance. Work will be optional. Rent will dissolve. You’ll glide into a green and pleasant future in which all hardship evaporates and life unfolds effortlessly. Do you want flying cars? A life free of bills? World peace with a side of universal harmony? Absolutely – it’s all included. To the naïve, the resentful and the unambitious it sounds like paradise. Utopia, here we come.

That none of this aligns with reality or human nature is, apparently, irrelevant. Ask any of the online ‘economists’ confidently insisting that we can print money indefinitely with no consequences. Terrifyingly, this thinking is landing – the Greens’ polling has surged in recent months.

Contrast this with the more conservative – or libertarian – message. Life is tough. There are no perfect solutions, only trade-offs. Hierarchies are inevitable; they’re part of our nature. You must sacrifice, and even then you won’t always get what you want. It is a message grounded in truth – and therefore a far harder sell than the Left’s shimmering fantasies. So the question becomes: how do you sell reality to a population raised on deflection?

You root the message in something deeper, older and profoundly human: the call to adventure. The recognition that meaning, responsibility and agency are not burdens but sources of strength. As an Englishman, the tradition is clear: you are responsible for your own life. No one is coming to rescue you. A healthy government should give you the space and autonomy to build a life for yourself and your family – and then step out of the way.

Not everything will go your way. But in freedom, responsibility becomes meaningful. And meaning makes life worth living.

Lee Taylor is CEO and Founder of marketing agency Uncommon Sense.