Trump has a message of alarm.
The hoards are coming! The hoards are coming! Lock your doors and windows!
The fact that the ad is deeply deceptive only underscores how strategic and intentional the message is.
The mainstream media had taken a close look at the advertisement that CNN, NBC, ABC, and even FOX decided not to run. It was too racist and too inaccurate, they all said.
***the ad says that Democrats let the cop-killer in. (So did George W. Bush, twice.)
***the ad says Democrats set him free. (Actually, Joe Arpaio did.)
***the ad shows people pushing at gates, implying it was people at the Mexican caravan. (It wasn't.)
The ad critics are missing the point. We are supposed to absorb the tone and emotion, not the details. The ad is art and propaganda, not journalism. Like Trump's tweets, viewers are supposed to take the ad seriously, not literally.
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| Banned Ad: Click |
Click on the link at the caption.
The quick cuts project a tone of frantic chaos. There is loud crowd noise. People speaking cannot be understood, so there are captions to read what they are saying, and beeps for vulgarity. We see foreign masses of people pushing at fences. And at beginning and end, a murderer mocks us and our justice system, smiling as he says he kills policemen. He sneers at us.
The message: Are we going to stand for that? Unruly hoards of dangerous, foreign people, forcing their way into America, yet they mock us? No way! Blame Democrats.
Trump fleshed out the argument in his rallies. Trump told rally-attendees on Monday in Cape Girardeau, Missouri to lock your doors, lock your windows: "Democrats are inviting caravan after caravan, illegal immigrants to flood into our country." And they would get free health care, free welfare, and the vote, he said. Democrats were "left-wing socialists," intending to deliver "a socialist nightmare."
This is the message that got Trump elected. People who don't respond to that message underestimate the appeal of that message to a great many Americans. It is a message that creates resentful that dangerous people would presume to force their way into America, take advantage of our safety net and our constitution, and then mock our justice system. A look at the rise of right wing nativist parties in Europe--and Brexit--could serve as a warning.
That message of dangerous outsiders then complements resentment felt by white Americans--especially white males--over their displacement as the default position atop a social hierarchy, due to affirmative action, MeToo, feminism, multiculturalism, globalism, and LGBTQ rights.
Trump has done a clever bit of political positioning. He has associated compassion with weakness. He has positioned our justice system as laughable and a subject of ridicule. Trump is laying the foundation for cruel authoritarian responses to the threat he describes.
How can Democrats respond? Democrats can show that a lawful, orderly response is possible and that they are comfortable using sufficient law enforcement to implement it. They can be the calm and just party--the alternative to Trump's alarmism.
We will manage immigration, not be managed by it.
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We will manage immigration, not be managed by it.
NOTE ON COMMENTS. COMMENTS HAVE BEEN TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED.
THIS BLOG HAS BEEN RECEIVING ONE BLOG COMMENT PER MINUTE FROM A COMPUTERIZED COMMENT PROGRAM FOR THE PAST 2 DAYS. ALL HAVE GONE TO MY JUNK MAIL. I AM HOPEFUL BY DISABLING COMMENTS I WILL BE ABLE TO STOP THE AUTOMATIC COMMENTING AND CAN RESTORE NORMAL COMMENTING SOON.
