Another ad tells Jewish neighborhoods in Pennsylvania that Kamala Harris is an anti-Semite who panders to Palestine.
Ad narration:
Vice president Harris has chosen a side -- the right side. Harris has made herself clear: She stands with Israel and the Jewish people. And joining Kamala will be her husband and top advisor, Doug Emhoff, who would be the first Jewish presidential spouse ever. Kamala relies on her husband Doug for counsel on the toughest issues like Israel's noble fight against the radical terrorists in Gaza. And when Doug talks, Kamala listens. Kamala and Doug, America's pro-Israel power couple.
--- ---
Another ad, "Stands with Palestine," runs in Jewish neighborhoods in Pennsylvania. It accuses Harris of being the opposite of what it says in the Dearborn ad:
Ad narration:
Two-faced Kamala Harris is secretly campaigning for Palestine and trying to get away with it. In Jewish communities throughout America questions are being asked why is she is running ads pandering to Palestine Why did Kamala Harris support denying Israel the weapons needed to defeat the Hamas terrorists who massacred thousands? And why did Harris show sympathy for college protesters who are rabidly antisemitic? We must stand up to anti-Semitism. We say no more. Kamala Harris, stop pandering to Palestine and stand with our ally Israel.
The ads are funded by Future Coalition PAC. It's sole funder was another PAC, Build America's Future PAC, funded by Elon Musk.
The ad running in Dearborn doesn't assert that Doug Emhoff is pro-Israel, a matter of politics. The ad dangles in front of its audience that Emhoff is Jewish, a matter of identity. Harris is married to a Jew!
It is fair to ask me: Am I so new to politics, so naive, so delicate, that I am able to be surprised by this pairing of ads? Don't I realize that all's fair in love and political war?
I surprised and dismayed. It is another erosion in our politics.
Future Coalition PAC could easily have disguised the fact that both ads were created by the same entity, and paid for the ads from different PACs. They didn't bother. They didn't mind their hypocrisy being immediately noticed -- two opposite messages. Cynical manipulation -- whether it be inventing a story of Haitian immigrants eating cats, or this pair of ads -- is a virtue now. One can admit it and be proud of doing so. Dishonesty and hypocrisy don't matter.
Political total war has another consequence. It leaves the home battlefield in worse condition than before. This ad doesn't create anti-Semitism, but it feeds it. And the American public gets increasingly accustomed to being lied to.
Today is a mixed day for Elon Musk. Possibly some opprobrium sprinkles down on him for his involvement in this bit of damage to American politics. But it is also a day in which Tesla's shares rose on the announcement that profits beat expectations and his projection of 20% vehicle sales growth next year.
Musk and Tesla will do well without my purchase. Most people won't notice or care about the Musk overlay onto the brand. And there are plenty of anti-Semites and Trump supporters who will be okay with the implied badges.
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17 comments:
What’s pathetic is that Republicans and their white-wing media denounce Democrats for engaging in identity politics, and the Trump cult is too clueless to appreciate their hypocrisy.
It looks like Musk is buying the presidency for Trump. In return, Trump has already promised to give him a big tax break and put him in charge of a “government efficiency commission” that would get rid of “wasteful” regulations. Quid pro quo? Not yet, and once elected you can forget it.
As Mark Twain said, we have the best government money can buy. The only difference is that today the ramifications of a criminal madman in the presidency are far more consequential, not only for us but for the world.
Aren't Arabs Semites? Doesn't Islam incorporate Abraham, Moses and even Jesus? Certainly Jerusalem--that's the very rub. It's a bitter, millennia-old struggle over family land, culture and inheritance. These ads play (unscrupulously) on that dynamic, even in--especially in--the bowdlerized American version of it. The Trump as Hitler claim also has seemingly contradictory underpinning in this very connection. The bank-dependent American "Hitler" restored Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish nation....
Then again, I never wrapped my brain around Dubya as alternatively or simultaneously Moron and Machiavel. Perhaps Dick Cheney was really the sinister, neo-imperialist Machiavel? You know, the valued Harris backer. Sigh....
Trump’s former chief of staff, Gen. John Kelly, revealed that Trump commented more than once, “You know, Hitler did some good things too,” and that he wished he had Hitler’s generals. His Nazi rhetoric and admiration for dictators couldn’t be more obvious. As his former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, “He’s fascist to the core.” There’s nothing contradictory about the Trump as Hitler claim, especially in the way so many citizens seem oblivious to his evil intent.
A contradictory pair of ads like this would not be effective if Kamala Harris had a clear position on the Israel/Iran war. But she does not, consistent with her apparently intentional lack of a clear position on so many issues.
She was against fracking before she was for it. She was for an open border before she was against it. She was for a mandate for electric vehicles before she was against it. She was for using tax dollars to pay for sex transition surgery for prisoners, and now she hides behind a statement that she will “follow the law.“
When asked about why she changed her positions, she responds with an impenetrable wall of talking points. She says her values “have not changed”, which tells you nothing about why her positions have changed.
Voters commonly tell pollsters that they have no idea who she is and what she stands for. Is she the woke Kamala from her 2019 campaign for the presidency, or the more moderate Kamala being presented to us now? Who knows? How could anyone tell?
Presenting voters with an intentionally blank slate is an open invitation for her opponents to paint pictures on it.
If she wins, we will eventually find out who she is, but it will be too late by then.
Hmm. Republicans and hypocrisy, what a novel perception and behavior on their part.
Perhaps even AI is confused about Harris's position, as it has not figured out how to digest word salad.
Related, sometimes headlines don't always mean what they state. Earlier today, the NY Times had a headline that Harris used the F-bomb at the CNN Town hall on Wednesday.
If you clicked on the headline and read the story, you'd discover they were referring her use of the word "fascist", a frequent word she has been using this week.
I think the spaghetti approach is being used to address the voters. Hopefully something will stick.
Arabs I heard talking before the Six Day War in 1967 said something to this effect about themselves: "I am not antisemitic. I am a semite." They also, before that war, said, "Kill jews." Of course, in English, the term antisemitic doesn't refer to Arabs. And I don't consider Trump as the one who restored Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Those seriously interested in Harris’ position on the issues can easily find them on her own website as well as many reputable sources that even provide comparisons of hers with Trump’s. And don’t forget to compare their characters. We have a law-abiding prosecutor who believes in the Constitution running against a criminal who tried to overturn the last election.
Of course, those who would prefer a megalomaniac in our nation’s highest office can get their talking points from white-wing media, which will confirm their preconceptions and are easier to parrot.
Should have said, "restored Jerusalem as Israel's capital for official American purposes".
Hard to picture a Nazi paying obeisances at the Western Wall wearing a yarmulke....
Trump calls his word salad “the weave,” but psychiatrists call it “flight of ideas.” Maybe Harris could just give a name to hers and nobody would care.
Can you picture one haranguing his followers about retribution against the enemy within and the vermin poisoning the blood of our country?
Harris‘s website does not contain answers to any of the questions I raised. She needs to come up with sensible answers. Time is running out.
Mc, do you understand why she changed her position on fracking? On EV mandates?On the border? On trans surgery for jail inmates?
Enlighten us, oh wise one…
To Michael Trigoboff.
This isn't unusual in life or in politics. When circumstances change, she changes. Everyone with good judgment does that. You, too, probably. Over the past five years it became clar that the earlier anti-fracking position was wrong. The world needed US oil, it was available, and we need to grow toward a low carbon future. The technology wasn't ready for as fast a transition as people hoped in 2019. The proof of that is that, in fact, under Biden (and therefore by the transitive principle, Harris) we in fact frack and produce far more oil than every before in history. Facts changed. She changed. Some locked-in-place Kamala Harris-haters condemn her for this. I don't. If I approach a traffic light and it is red, I stop If it turns green, I go. Why would anyone condemn that?
On EV mandates? Sure. The transition is probably a good idea, but the infrastructure of charging stations, plus battery technology, plus pricing, isn't ready. So she adjusted to reality. Again, wouldn't any prudent person?
On immigration, it became clear that the effort to honor treaties on amnesty are choking the border. People were gaming the system. She was the VP, not the president, and no one who understands American politics thinks that VPs drive policy. They are the caboose, as best But it was clear that the previous system was not working, so she changed. Good
Americans have some responsibility to provide health care to inmates. They are locked up; most are not promptly executed. So if you lock them up; you have to feed them, give them insulin, treat their broken bones. She understands now that treating gender dysphoria with surgery is a bridge too far. I certainly think so. So she changed. Good.
I don't question the smarts or integrity of computer science professors who no longer teach students using punch cards and Wang computers.. I don't consider them inconsistent or dishonest. The technology changed, so they changed. Kamala Harris is a mixed race, half-Black woman, who embarrassed Biden by reminding him that she was a beneficiary of busing to integrate schools. It is totally your right to hold that against her. We get it You don't like her, and your criticism is relentless. She cannot change her race or her support for racial integration. But she has moved in your direction on issues of fracking, immigration, and EV mandates. I am happy about it.
It’s too bad that Harris doesn’t have you as a speech writer.
I am not criticizing her for changing her positions. I am criticizing her for being totally 100% unwilling to explain why she changed her positions. Even prominent democratic political consultant David Axelrod, commenting on the recent CNN town hall, criticized Harris for going to “word salad city“ when asked these questions, despite the fact that he desperately wants her to win.
If she ends up losing, her unwillingness to explain her changes in position will be a significant part of why she lost.
You are correct that I do not like her. I do not like her because as far as I can tell, her new moderation is a mask designed to get her elected, and woke Kamala from 2019 is lurking behind that mask. If she had something convincing to say about her changes in position, I might believe her and not be so critical of her.
How interesting that changing her position on issues is such a dealbreaker for Harris, but not for Trump who has conveniently changed his position on abortion, Social Security, Obamacare, TikTok and more. Funny how that makes an old, demented criminal peddling hatred more worthy of our nation’s highest office than an honorable politician who respects the rule of law.
From “The Big Lebowski”: “Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism—at least it’s an ethos”.
Trump’s ethos is Trump. Put him in charge, maybe he’s an Emperor Nero? But no cohesive, evil ideology.
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