That's changed in the last couple of weeks. All of a sudden, it is thought that the Land of Enchantment is in play, and we're seeing campaign commercials for both sides daily, often hourly. All summer our airwaves were blessedly free of those, but now one can't escape them. Some of them are positive ads, about the wonderful things the candidates is going to do for us... but the vast majority are negative, attacking the opponent. Sadly, that seems to have become the default setting for politics in this 21st century of ours.
Watching them, however, a very huge and basic difference struck me.
The Trump commercials are all fairly standard political attack ads. You've seen a thousand like them. Find some bad pictures of the opponent, in this case Hillary, pictures that make them look ugly or angry or crazed (easily done, there are thousands of unflattering pictures of any public figure floating around these days). If they are not bad enough, put them up in black & white, which always seems to make them worse. Juxtapose them with negative imagery, maybe some out of context headlines. Use a faceless narrator's voice over the pictures telling us that the candidate is corrupt or a liar or "too extreme." The latest Trump ad manages to add Anthony Weiner, who is called "Pervert Anthony Weiner." The blatant name-calling -- flinging around words like 'pervert' and 'crooked' -- is not something we have often seen before in American politics, unless you go back to the 18th and 19th centuries; that's Trump's own original ugly contribution to lowering the tenor of political discourse. The rest, however, is Attack Ad 101.
What's notable here is that the whole thing is accusation. It's one side calling the other side names. If any political positions are presented, they are usually distorted. Smith says Jones is corrupt. Jones says Smith is a liar. Smith says Jones voted for something unpopular. Jones says Smith favors something vile. Trump's ads against Hillary tick every box here. They are made of assertion, innuendo, and name-calling, but there's no substance to them.
Clinton's ads are something else. Very different, and -- to my mind -- much more truthful. The star of all the Clinton ads in Donald J. Trump. There are no deliberately unflattering photographs, however. Nothing in black and white. Just video clips, full color, professional footage from news cameras at his rallies, interviews, television appearances. There's no name-calling either. Clinton doesn't need to label Trump as "crooked" or "a liar" or link him with "perverts." Clinton's ads just show Trump being Trump.
So what we have here is not Smith claiming that Jones said terrible things. What we have is actual footage of Jones saying and doing those things. No one has to accuse Trump of anything, he has laid it all out there in public for the world to see.
Yes, he mocked a disabled reporter. There he is, doing it.
Yes, he told Billy Bush he liked to kiss women without their consent and grab them by their pussies. There he is, boasting about it. When you're a star, you can do anything.
No need to accuse Trump of going into the dressing rooms of Miss Universe and Miss Teen USA pagaents when the contestants were changing so he could see them naked. There's Trump himself, telling Howard Stern about it.
Yes, he said women should be punished for having abortions. There he is, telling Chris Matthews. His own words, his own face.
Yes, he said he wants to ban all Muslims from entering the US. Here, see the clip.
Yes, he's in favor of Japan and Saudi Arabia and South Korea having nukes, here's the clip where he says so.
And on and on and on and on. The Gold Star family, the bad hombres, Judge Curiel, the Miss Universe contestant... his own speeches, his own tweets, his own words.
The usual pattern in election is that Smith says Jones said something terrible, and Jones denies it. Not so here. Hillary does not need to use the sort of hoary attack ads that Trump is using. She only needs to present him as he is, and let his own words condemn them.
And they do.
In my lifetime, there has never been a presidential candidate more unfit to lead this nation.
You don't need to like Hillary. You don't need to listen to what Hillary says about Trump, or what I say about Trump. You just need to listen to Trump. If you can do that, and still consider voting for him... well...
Pappy Bush lost an election by looking at his watch. Michael Dukakis lost an election by riding around in a tank. Howard Dean lost an election by giving a yeeeehah scream. Trivial things. Insignificant things. Trump, on the other hand, has said the vilest things any presidential candidate has said since George Wallace, and he's rising in the polls.
He has boasted that he could shoot someone dead on Fifth Avenue and still not lose any votes. I am beginning to think he was right.
- Current Location:Santa Fe
- Current Mood:
thoughtful
Comments
Truer words have never been spoken. I, too, live in Santa Fe and I, too, am nervous about the election. I lost my "I voted" sticker and I was really looking forward to the free popcorn. I am too shy to say hello when I see you in town, but next time, maybe I will. Hugs!
If you could come over to the UK and simplify our situation for some others it would be appreciated.
Thanks
1. Trump did not say "ban all muslims". He said to temporarily ban them until we find a way to vet them. That's a big difference from straight up banning them. Almost every high ranking Defense expert has said that ISIS will infiltrate the refugee flow. Are we racist now if we dont let the enemy onto our shores?
2. Trump did not mock that disabled reporter. He did the same exact thing talking about Ted Cruz and him being flustered and no one said a word. The reporter in question had a deformed arm. Trump is clearly shaking both arms and stuttering the same way someone who is panicking would be. If the reporter had cerebral palsy I would say yes. But come on, when I see that I do not see how that is making fun of someone with 1 deformed hand.
3. This is your most blatant one. Chris Matthews asked Trump a hypothetical, saying if abortion were to be outlawed, should there be punishment for those who get them? Trump clearly responded that the law is the law and you shouldn't be allowed to break them even if you disagree with them. Just because you don't like a law doesn't mean you can break it and get a free ride.
I'm not big fan of Trump myself, and I wont even begin to defend some of the other insane things he has said. But can we atleast be truthful and not misleading?
1. Yes, if we ban all Muslims -- even "temporarily" -- for fear a few may be ISIS sympathizers, that's racist. And unAmerican. Vet them, sure. We already vet them. The vast majority are desperate people trying to get AWAY from ISIS, many of them women and children. Will there be a few bad guys in there? Sure. There have been bad guys in every wave of immigrants to come to America, a handful in among all the good ones. Bad Irish, bad Germans, bad Italians. That doesn't mean we shut the doors. We're the land of the free and the home of the BRAVE, remember?
2. So mocking a guy with cerebral palsy would be a no-no, but mocking a stutterer with a deformed arm is okay? Really?? No, sorry, it was disgusting and offensive. Can you imagine Ronald Reagan doing that? John F. Kennedy? Obama, Eisenhower, ANYONE?
3. Again, the tape is there. Hypothetical question or not, that was his answer. Hypothetical questions are still questions, and the way one answers them gives insight into the way one thinks.
Edited at 2016-11-04 08:42 pm (UTC)
Words normally acceptable like 'naive' or 'gullible' are considered too abrasive. I am climbing the mountain to speek to the wise master You are the Maester of Words.
Do you have a word or two, that might let someone know you think they may be wrong, and you want them to consider another view. Its a balancing act. Just one word, or two, or a simple sentence? MUCHAS GRACIAS.
Alas, I'm just a writer, not a jedi. If only that "these are not the droids you want" thing worked, we could just tell Trump voters "this is not the president you want."
By contrast, the United States is simply too important for bad decisions made here to not effect everyone else. If the United States has a President who thinks climate change is a hoax, and he withdraws from attempts to fight it, the rest of the world will suffer for it. If the United States defaults on U.S. debt, the whole world economy will suffer fo it. If the United States stops caring about nuclear proliferation because the President isn't intelligent enough to understand why it's an issue and isn't humble enough to listen to advice from more knowledgeable people ("I know more about ISIS than the generals!"), then there will be more nuclear proliferation.
So yes, we should all be walking around with knotted stomachs until the danger has passed.
Edited at 2016-11-05 12:19 am (UTC)
Edit*
P.S. Please do not make a character in any of your book series that is Trumpeske, real life is too much. We can't handle it in fiction also.
Edited at 2016-11-04 08:27 pm (UTC)
Greetings from Prague I hope you don't end up like we did.
Do we need a climate change denying administration? The coral reefs. Species extinction. Environments wiped out. Eventual fight for food and water by all.
We can stop crazies runnng our country. We can work on turning back global warming.
So..... VOTE. Please vote.
Hillary is NOT "the most crooked political ever to run for president." You obviously have never taken a history course. That's just the sort of empty name-calling that typifies the Trump campaign.
Hillary is under FBI investigation, sure. So is Trump. Trump will be on trial for rape in a few months. The Clintons have been investigated more than any other public figures in recent history, and NONE of the investigations have ever found proof of anything.
Anthony Weiner's sins belong to Anthony Weiner. And Trump has far more in common with Weiner than Hillary does; Trump is the one who has been accused of multiple counts of sexual assault by a dozen different women.
Thanks for posting this, you rock