There Is No Them

This is a political brand created for Matt Dubin, who ran as a Libertarian for State Representative in the 36th Legislative District of Washington State, which includes about half of downtown Seattle.

The district is 90% Democratic, so we needed a progressive hook on which to hang our libertarian message.

"There Is No Them" reflects a rising disaffection with the fact that most political problems in Seattle are solved by dividing the community into “us” and “them” (e.g. progressives vs. conservatives, or homeless people vs. payers of property tax, or large companies vs. people one low income) - and then taking from "them" to give to "us".

The worst expression of the problem is identity politics. "There Is No Them" is a universalist message that nevertheless taps the rising, unstated sentiment of even many Seattle progressives that political divisiveness has gone too far.

There Is No Them situated Matt as a political leader who has found a positive way to say what everyone is thinking.

We captures his libertarian philosophy as loving people enough to let them choose the life that they choose, while making sure that when they need help, the helped actually works for them in and doesn't hurt others.

In other words, "we should measure the compassion by the good that we do" - and not by the strength of our good intentions.

Through the Primary, Matt, a Libertarian candidate, was almost dollar-for-dollar in fund raising with the Democratic incumbent, which is record-breaking. His success also allowed us to produce and run TV ads throughout the district. Cliff Maloney of Young Americans for Liberty called our work "the best messaged campaign in the country today.""

Notice how the branding looks and feels nothing like a typical political campaign. This was critical to ensure that the cognitive dissonance of non-libertarians didn't cause them to dismiss the message upon discovery Matt's party.

The many progressives in the district responded positively to the idea that "there is no them" and only then discovered the "L" after Matt's name, causing them to associate the Libertarian brand with a positive emotional experience, helping us to break through much of the prevailing skepticism about the Libertarian party.

In precincts where we were able to put up signs with the slogan prominent, 5% to 8% of party-line Democratic voters broke their voting pattern to vote for Matt. This result was unprecedented.