For decades, the safest brand position on politics was silence. Don't alienate half your market. Stay neutral. Sell to everyone. This was genuinely defensible advice because the political middle was large enough that neutrality felt normal rather than cowardly.
Sell to everyone.
2020 ended that. The political middle collapsed, polarization intensified, and silence became interpretable. If your brand doesn't say something about voting rights, about racial justice, about the basic legitimacy of democratic processes, a growing portion of your audience reads that silence as complicity. 'No position' is now a position.
This puts brands in an impossible situation and I genuinely empathize. The old rules said: stay out of politics, focus on your product, let people project whatever they want onto your brand. The new rules say: your audience demands to know what you stand for, and if you won't tell them, they'll assume the worst.
My advice has shifted. I used to tell brands: 'only speak on issues intrinsic to your brand.' Now I tell them: 'identify the minimum viable stance.' There are some positions that have become so broadly expected (basic human rights, democratic participation, safety of your employees) that remaining silent on them is more controversial than speaking.
The brands that will navigate this best are the ones that find their genuine lane, issues they have authentic standing to address, and then hold that lane consistently. The worst position is reactive: speaking only when pressured and then only saying the minimum. That satisfies nobody.
Portland proves this point every day. Walk down any block in the Pearl and count the micro-brands. It's a living lab.