Sabotaging Democracy?
Nov 6, 2017, 5:57 AM
Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie shares a laugh as he attends a get-out-the-vote rally in Williamsburg, Va., Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017. Gillespie faces Democrat Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam in Tuesday's election. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
(AP Photo/Steve Helber)
Most people seem to accept that the Russian government has been trying to sabotage democracy by manipulating us into hating each other, which is why Congress held three hearings last week to bludgeon Facebook, Google, and Twitter into doing something about it.
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But if it’s bad for the Russians to try to tear us apart, what about our own homegrown political attack ads?
Take a look at the ads in the Virginia governor’s race.
The Latino Victory Fund, which supports Democrat Ralph Northam, put up a spot where a Latino child has a nightmare that he and his friends are being chased by a pickup truck. The truck has the Confederate Stars and Bars waving from the tailgate next to an Ed Gillespie bumper sticker.
“Run, run, run….”
The child wakes from his nightmare and then we see a clip of a torchlight march.
“Is this what Donald Trump and Ed Gillespie mean by the American Dream?”
Of course, the target of that ad, Republican Ed Gillespie, didn’t hold back on his ads either.
“MS-13 is a menace. Yet Ralph Northam voted in favor of sanctuary cities that let dangerous, illegal immigrants back on the street, increasing the threat of MS-13.”
Issues like bigotry and sanctuary laws are certainly worth debating, but the images and the horror movie soundtracks in these spots aren’t there to begin a debate but to scare the hell out of you. It makes you want to run to your reinforced concrete safe room, and stay there until the election’s over.
And it’s all entering your brain – without any help from some foreign country.
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