India, the “world’s biggest democracy,” doesn’t hesitate to flirt with Beijing. Because democracy no longer sells. It is messy. It is slow. It is hypocritical.

Autocracy is the upgrade. It is packaged as efficiency and growth. Sleek. Dangerous. Seductive.

Democracy was Coca-Cola. Sweet, global, everywhere. Now it is flat.
Autocracy is Red Bull. Ugly. Addictive. Global. It promises wings, even if it wrecks you.

Look at the parade in Beijing. Missiles rolling like limited-edition sneakers. Xi, Putin, and Kim posing like brand influencers at a launch event. This wasn’t a military march. It was an ad campaign.

Naomi Klein warned us how brands hollow out meaning. That’s what autocracy is doing now. Strip out human rights. Strip out transparency. What’s left? A clean pitch: speed, growth, security. The Apple Store of geopolitics.

Meanwhile democracy runs on nostalgia. Freedom. Rights. Integrity. Beautiful words. But when the infrastructure breaks, when governments gridlock, when politicians keep stealing money, when scandals are daily, when people feel betrayed—those slogans sound like jingles from a dead brand.

The West thinks the world still buys its values. The Global South is shopping for results. Ports. Railways. 5G. Debt relief. They don’t want democracy’s story. They want autocracy’s product.

Missiles are the new billboards. Parades are product launches. Power has become a spectacle, and the audience is global.

The Coca-Cola of politics is sliding to the back shelf. The Red Bull of politics is now at eye level. And the world is reaching for the can with wings.

Every empire ends the same way. Not with a bang. With bad branding.