Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Agree on Biden. Disagree that Trump isn’t doing any dividing of his own. Yes he is a symptom, but he is also a mega phone amplifying the message , I mean have you ever heard his speeches?
I feel a lot of what comes out of Trump's mouth is aimed at hanging onto what he has left in his base. I think he realizes if he wavers on his message, that he may lose enough votes to not win the Electoral College. There isn't much of a chance he gets the popular vote, shit he lost the popular vote in 2016 by over 2M votes.
I wish I was a sacrifice, but somehow still lived on.
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Agree on Biden. Disagree that Trump isn’t doing any dividing of his own. Yes he is a symptom, but he is also a mega phone amplifying the message , I mean have you ever heard his speeches?
Yeah I agree that calling him a symptom is soft pedaling it. He is an accelerant, gas to the fire, match to the kindling, etc.
I disagree that Biden can turn votes. He absolutely can and he is already, particularly among Catholics in the midwest who are not nearly as wed to Trump as Evangelicals. The polling already shows Trumps losing white Catholics to Biden, a demo that he really ate up in 16.
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Agree on Biden. Disagree that Trump isn’t doing any dividing of his own. Yes he is a symptom, but he is also a mega phone amplifying the message , I mean have you ever heard his speeches?
Yeah I agree that calling him a symptom is soft pedaling it. He is an accelerant, gas to the fire, match to the kindling, etc.
I disagree that Biden can turn votes. He absolutely can and he is already, particularly among Catholics in the midwest who are not nearly as wed to Trump as Evangelicals. The polling already shows Trumps losing white Catholics to Biden, a demo that he really ate up in 16.
I definitely think if Biden keeps from blaming entire factions of political parties, he can gain significant support from more conservative voters who may see him as closer to Reagan, who for whatever reason seems to be adored by many older Americans, especially those of the traditional republican party. Biden already has the left, he needs to push the needle to the right more to secure those people who vote purely on policy and not the person. If he seems less extreme and more willing to meet the needs of the angry middle class white folks in rural areas, he will sway them to avoid captain diarrhea mouth. Forget about his base who love to focus on fear and loathing of the other (like my relatives unfortunately, they are a lost cause.
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Trump may be a symptom of division but like hell he isn't causing any of his own. Anyone and everyone can see that.
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Agree on Biden. Disagree that Trump isn’t doing any dividing of his own. Yes he is a symptom, but he is also a mega phone amplifying the message , I mean have you ever heard his speeches?
He is absolutely stoking it. Like I said, he leans into it in a galling way. What I'm saying is that voting in Biden isn't going to move the needle on bringing us together. It's a much deeper problem than who's in the White House.
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Trump may be a symptom of division but like hell he isn't causing any of his own. Anyone and everyone can see that.
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Agree on Biden. Disagree that Trump isn’t doing any dividing of his own. Yes he is a symptom, but he is also a mega phone amplifying the message , I mean have you ever heard his speeches?
He is absolutely stoking it. Like I said, he leans into it in a galling way. What I'm saying is that voting in Biden isn't going to move the needle on bringing us together. It's a much deeper problem than who's in the White House.
I didn’t say he’d move the needle...I said it should be his primary theme. His intention should be to move the needle; if it doesn’t move it should not be for lack of effort... but at the very least he can slow The current trajectory simply by not being Trump.
I don’t think that much of Biden...but just about anyone outside of Trump-licking Republicans can set a better tone.The needle can’t move until Trump is out and the obvious rhetoric is right in front of him.
Post edited by OnWis97 on
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Trump may be a symptom of division but like hell he isn't causing any of his own. Anyone and everyone can see that.
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Agree on Biden. Disagree that Trump isn’t doing any dividing of his own. Yes he is a symptom, but he is also a mega phone amplifying the message , I mean have you ever heard his speeches?
He is absolutely stoking it. Like I said, he leans into it in a galling way. What I'm saying is that voting in Biden isn't going to move the needle on bringing us together. It's a much deeper problem than who's in the White House.
I didn’t say he’d move the needle...I said it should be his primary theme. His intention should be to move the needle; if it doesn’t move it should not be for k ok ack of effort... but at the very least he can slow The current trajectory simply by not being Trump.
I don’t think that much of Biden...but just about anyone outside of Trump-licking Republicans can set a better tone.The needle can’t move until Trump is out and the obvious rhetoric is right in front of him.
I think Sleepy Woke Joe, and depending on his VP pick, can move the needle. With a dem dominate house and his knowledge and relationships in the senate, he can stand his ground or compromise to get things done, even with a slim repub majority. The blind loyalty to Team Trump Treason and the fear of a Team Trump Treason endorsed primary from the right goes away with Team Trump Treason indicted out of office and with a dem senate, everything changes.
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Trump may be a symptom of division but like hell he isn't causing any of his own. Anyone and everyone can see that.
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Agree on Biden. Disagree that Trump isn’t doing any dividing of his own. Yes he is a symptom, but he is also a mega phone amplifying the message , I mean have you ever heard his speeches?
He is absolutely stoking it. Like I said, he leans into it in a galling way. What I'm saying is that voting in Biden isn't going to move the needle on bringing us together. It's a much deeper problem than who's in the White House.
I didn’t say he’d move the needle...I said it should be his primary theme. His intention should be to move the needle; if it doesn’t move it should not be for lack of effort... but at the very least he can slow The current trajectory simply by not being Trump.
I don’t think that much of Biden...but just about anyone outside of Trump-licking Republicans can set a better tone.The needle can’t move until Trump is out and the obvious rhetoric is right in front of him.
I guess? I think this is too Trump-focused though, as many things tend to be.
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Trump may be a symptom of division but like hell he isn't causing any of his own. Anyone and everyone can see that.
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Agree on Biden. Disagree that Trump isn’t doing any dividing of his own. Yes he is a symptom, but he is also a mega phone amplifying the message , I mean have you ever heard his speeches?
He is absolutely stoking it. Like I said, he leans into it in a galling way. What I'm saying is that voting in Biden isn't going to move the needle on bringing us together. It's a much deeper problem than who's in the White House.
I didn’t say he’d move the needle...I said it should be his primary theme. His intention should be to move the needle; if it doesn’t move it should not be for lack of effort... but at the very least he can slow The current trajectory simply by not being Trump.
I don’t think that much of Biden...but just about anyone outside of Trump-licking Republicans can set a better tone.The needle can’t move until Trump is out and the obvious rhetoric is right in front of him.
I guess? I think this is too Trump-focused though, as many things tend to be.
The election is going to be Trump-focused. And try as you might to make it about "the issues" where the GOP is slightly better (from the libertarian perspective) I don't even think we have the luxury to debate that stuff. The person running for re-election is an absolute disgrace and his party, which has taken on his persona is in a position to become the only viable party (maybe it already is). The impacts of having the most important person in this country villanizing his own constituents simply to rile up his biggest fans are going to be enormous. Most of them are able to dismiss everything they read/see that doesn't meet Trump's narrative as a liberal media conspiracy. "The issues?" There's one issue for me; authoritarianism...and we're on our way.
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
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The Juggler
Behind that bush over there. Posts: 47,298
I wonder how far out we are from having republican senators that are up for election start to trash him. There will be a point where trashing trump helps them....like their only hope will be to trash him
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville 2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Trump may be a symptom of division but like hell he isn't causing any of his own. Anyone and everyone can see that.
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Agree on Biden. Disagree that Trump isn’t doing any dividing of his own. Yes he is a symptom, but he is also a mega phone amplifying the message , I mean have you ever heard his speeches?
He is absolutely stoking it. Like I said, he leans into it in a galling way. What I'm saying is that voting in Biden isn't going to move the needle on bringing us together. It's a much deeper problem than who's in the White House.
I didn’t say he’d move the needle...I said it should be his primary theme. His intention should be to move the needle; if it doesn’t move it should not be for lack of effort... but at the very least he can slow The current trajectory simply by not being Trump.
I don’t think that much of Biden...but just about anyone outside of Trump-licking Republicans can set a better tone.The needle can’t move until Trump is out and the obvious rhetoric is right in front of him.
I guess? I think this is too Trump-focused though, as many things tend to be.
Trump wants to make everything about him. Well there you go.
I wonder how far out we are from having republican senators that are up for election start to trash him. There will be a point where trashing trump helps them....like their only hope will be to trash him
I don't know...is still in the low-90s among Republicans? These candidates may be screwed either way. If they start trashing trump the majority (vast majority) of people in their own party might think twice. If they don't, it might hurt them with independents and never-Trumpers. I don't have a good sense of what incumbent GOP senators are up this year...but it probably depends on states. Moscow Mitch? It's Kentucky. Stick with Trump. Purple-states? That's trickier.
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
I wonder how far out we are from having republican senators that are up for election start to trash him. There will be a point where trashing trump helps them....like their only hope will be to trash him
Apparently, Lindsey Flimsy Flip Flop Faloozy already has as his race has tightened. I think a number of repubs feel he’s going to be gone and can be ignored or trashed. It’ll get particularly ugly after Labor Day.
I wonder how far out we are from having republican senators that are up for election start to trash him. There will be a point where trashing trump helps them....like their only hope will be to trash him
Apparently, Lindsey Flimsy Flip Flop Faloozy already has as his race has tightened. I think a number of repubs feel he’s going to be gone and can be ignored or trashed. It’ll get particularly ugly after Labor Day.
There’s no one more fitting to go down with the Trump ship. I have no idea how he lives with himself. Nobody has degraded themselves more for the opportunity to ride Trump’s coattails...except Melania of course.
I hope he nominates Susan Rice as his Veep. She’s got a lot of experience from the Clinton and Obama eras and would be capable of leading the country if something happened to Biden.
I wish I was a sacrifice, but somehow still lived on.
I hope he nominates Susan Rice as his Veep. She’s got a lot of experience from the Clinton and Obama eras and would be capable of leading the country if something happened to Biden.
Compared to the current president my dog would be more capable.
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Trump may be a symptom of division but like hell he isn't causing any of his own. Anyone and everyone can see that.
Biden isn't unifying anything. He can say that if he wants, but no one who isn't already voting for him is gonna buy it. Trump isn't causing division, he's a symptom of it. The only thing that's remarkable is how he leans into it like a complete asshole. Past Presidents and Presidential candidates had the decency(?) to save it for private speeches so they could talk about being misquoted later.
Agree on Biden. Disagree that Trump isn’t doing any dividing of his own. Yes he is a symptom, but he is also a mega phone amplifying the message , I mean have you ever heard his speeches?
He is absolutely stoking it. Like I said, he leans into it in a galling way. What I'm saying is that voting in Biden isn't going to move the needle on bringing us together. It's a much deeper problem than who's in the White House.
I didn’t say he’d move the needle...I said it should be his primary theme. His intention should be to move the needle; if it doesn’t move it should not be for lack of effort... but at the very least he can slow The current trajectory simply by not being Trump.
I don’t think that much of Biden...but just about anyone outside of Trump-licking Republicans can set a better tone.The needle can’t move until Trump is out and the obvious rhetoric is right in front of him.
I guess? I think this is too Trump-focused though, as many things tend to be.
The election is going to be Trump-focused. And try as you might to make it about "the issues" where the GOP is slightly better (from the libertarian perspective) I don't even think we have the luxury to debate that stuff. The person running for re-election is an absolute disgrace and his party, which has taken on his persona is in a position to become the only viable party (maybe it already is). The impacts of having the most important person in this country villanizing his own constituents simply to rile up his biggest fans are going to be enormous. Most of them are able to dismiss everything they read/see that doesn't meet Trump's narrative as a liberal media conspiracy. "The issues?" There's one issue for me; authoritarianism...and we're on our way.
We're getting way, way off road. I gotta pull the ripcord.
I hope he nominates Susan Rice as his Veep. She’s got a lot of experience from the Clinton and Obama eras and would be capable of leading the country if something happened to Biden.
Compared to the current president my dog would be more capable.
This dog too.
I wish I was a sacrifice, but somehow still lived on.
I wonder how far out we are from having republican senators that are up for election start to trash him. There will be a point where trashing trump helps them....like their only hope will be to trash him
Labor Day
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The Juggler
Behind that bush over there. Posts: 47,298
I hope he nominates Susan Rice as his Veep. She’s got a lot of experience from the Clinton and Obama eras and would be capable of leading the country if something happened to Biden.
Compared to the current president my dog would be more capable.
I like her too but I fear she would turn off some much needed votes from independents and reasonable republicans...
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The Juggler
Behind that bush over there. Posts: 47,298
edited July 2020
Biden
Told you these guys are good. They're playing a vital role in this election...
What the Lincoln Project Ad Makers Get About Voters (and What Dems Don’t)
The Republicans of the Lincoln Project might have an advantage over Trump’s left-leaning opponents.
A still from "100,000 Dead," a Lincoln Project ad. | Youtube
By JOANNA WEISS
Joanna Weiss is the editor of Experience magazine, published by Northeastern University.
“100,000 Dead,” an ad from the anti-Trump super PAC known as The Lincoln Project, comes at you like a miniature horror film. It starts with a shot of seven white body bags, detailed enough that you can see the outline of limbs underneath, and the voice of President Donald Trump at a press briefing in February. The nation’s Covid-19 caseload will soon be “close to zero,” Trump says; his words repeat in an increasingly distorted voice, as the camera pulls back to reveal row upon row of body bags in the shape of an American flag. New words land on the screen with audible thumps: “100,000 dead Americans. One wrong president.” It ends with the faint sound of wind whistling, as if through a graveyard.
Down to the smallest detail, it’s a masterful nugget of compact filmmaking. And it helped draw attention to a renegade corps of Republican strategists, veterans of campaigns for George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, who are applying their attack-ad skills to their own party’s president—and going for the kill shot, every time. “Mourning in America,” their ad released in May, starts with a pointed reference to the Ronald Reagan slogan, then blames Trump for the full range of post-Covid despair, using images of hospital hallways, decrepit buildings and an upside-down flag. (Facebook slapped the ad with a “partly false” warning label, since it assigns Trump all of the blame for relief bills that were passed by the vast majority of Democrats in Congress.) “Debt,” released in late June, starts off like a History Channel documentary about the sacrifices made during World War II, and ends with an image of a Greatest Generation member, hooked up to a ventilator.
Some of the ads are running on TV, on Fox News or in battleground states. Some are simply released online, at a rapid pace. Many are based on assumptions that may or may not turn out to be true: that swing voters will be as unforgiving as Democrats about Trump’s Covid response, for instance, or that they’ll be bothered any more by Trump’s coarse rhetoric than they were, or weren’t, four years ago. Still, the Lincoln Project is clearly getting under the skin of the president and his supporters. And the evidence is not just raging tweets; in one of those Washington funhouse mirror moments, the Trump-friendly super PAC Club for Growth just released an ad attacking the Lincoln Project founders as if they were candidates themselves.
How has one renegade super PAC managed to trigger Trump and his allies so thoroughly? Part of it is surely frustration that a group of Republicans would issue a full-throated endorsement of Joe Biden. Part of it is skill: the Lincoln Project ads are slick, quick and filled with damning quotes and unflattering photos. But part of it might just be that Republicans are better at this than Democrats. Trump may sense that these ads are especially dangerous because they pack an emotional punch, using imagery designed to provoke anxiety, anger and fear—aimed at the very voters who were driven to him by those same feelings in 2016. And history, even science, suggests that might in fact be the case—that Republicans have a knack for scaring the hell out of people, and that makes for some potent ads.
Not every Lincoln Project video peddles in fear. Some are traditional political ads, overenthusiastically produced and applied to issues that might irk the president: supporting Democrat Steve Bullock for U.S. Senate in Montana, attacking Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. Some are 30-to-60-second versions of the kind of schoolyard taunting you might expect from Trump himself. In “Shrinking,” released after the president’s disappointing rally in Tulsa, a female voice mocks the size of the crowd: “You’ve probably heard this before, but it was smaller than we expected.”
The group’s most memorable ads, though, are the ones that are self-serious and brutal. Within days of news that Vladimir Putin paid the Taliban to target American soldiers, the Lincoln Project released two ads that hammer Trump as a lackey of foreign enemies, using language that, in another year, Republicans might have used to make Democrats look weak. “Betrayal” features Dan Barkhuff, a former Navy SEAL who declares that “any commander-in-chief with a spine would be stomping the living shit out of some Russians right now—diplomatically, economically, or, if necessary, with the sort of asymmetric warfare they’re using to send our kids home in body bags.” “Bounty” starts with images of flag-draped coffins and the sound of tapping drums, then pivots to a standard attack-ad trick: carefully-spliced clips of Trump and Putin at joint press conferences, the action drawn out so that every smile and handshake looks doubly sinister.
Stoking fear is a tried-and-true tactic of political advertising, stemming back to the Lyndon Johnson campaign’s 1964 anti-Barry Goldwater ad “Daisy.” But many of the most indelible ones have stemmed from the Republican camp, and over time, they’ve grown increasingly blunt. Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “Bear” ad used a grizzly as metaphor for the Soviet nuclear threat: “Isn't it smart to be as strong as the bear—if there is a bear?” the voice over intoned. That ad inspired George W. Bush’s “Wolves” from 2004, which accused John Kerry of being soft on terrorism. George H.W. Bush’s infamous 1988 Willie Horton ad linked Michael Dukakis to a prisoner who committed brutal crimes on a weekend pass, flashing the words “Kidnapping,” “Stabbing,” and “Raping” on the screen. (The ad has since been scorned, not just for exploiting racial stereotypes, but also for paving the way for tough-on-crime bills that had lasting social repercussions.)
The secret of fearmongering is a willingness to go there, and that’s where the Republicans of the Lincoln Project might have an advantage over Trump’s left-leaning opponents. The group’s founders aren’t calibrating their ads around a Democratic base that mistrusts the military, delves into nuance, or shies away from causing offense. That leaves ample room for dog-whistle symbols that range from clichés to horror-movie tropes: One ad accuses Trump of being played by China, and ends with the image of the White House, the entire screen tinted red.
Research shows there’s a reason these ads could be effective with Republicans voters: Conservatives are an especially fear-prone group. In a 2008 paper in the journal Science, researchers subjected a group of adults with strong political beliefs to a set of startling noises and graphic images. Those with the strongest physical reactions were more likely to support capital punishment, defense spending and the war in Iraq. A 2011 paper in the journal Cell found a correlation between conservative leanings and the size of the right amygdala, the portion of the brain that processes emotions in response to fearful stimuli. In her book Irony and Outrage, University of Delaware professor Dannagal Young points out that liberals and conservatives respond differently to entertainment rhetoric: Liberals have a higher tolerance for open-ended ambiguity, while conservatives look for closure and want problems to be solved.
That research helps explain why some attack ads move the needle with the right populations—and why some, in retrospect, don’t. Take the Hillary Clinton campaign ad, “Mirrors,” which aired about a month before the 2016 election. Hailed, in certain circles, as an instant classic, it showed a series of young girls looking at their own reflections as Trump’s voice played in the background, saying things like, “I’d look her right in that fat ugly face of hers.” Mother Jones deemed the ad “powerful”; Bustle called it “brilliant.” But it didn’t convert the white suburban women Clinton’s advisers surely hoped to reach, because it not only preached to the choir, but spoke in the language of the choir. It was too subtle, Young might say, asking viewers to connect the dots, rather than hammering in a dramatic point. And it played to voters’ conscience and values—the kinds of things voters have to think about—rather than their raw emotions.
Trump’s ads, by comparison, have required little thought; the dots are pre-connected in thick Sharpie ink. His first 2016 ad, “Great Again,” touted his willingness to utter the words “RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM,” which the ad displayed in all caps over images of masked fighters and photos of the San Bernardino shooters. (The same ad pledged that Trump would “cut the head off ISIS.”) His campaign’s fear-stoking 2018 anti-immigration ad, featuring an illegal immigrant convicted of murder and caravan footage that evoked an invasion, was so incendiary that many networks, including Fox News, refused to run it.
The Lincoln Project, too, knows how to deliver an unsubtle message, and Trump has given them some useful raw material. Recent news footage makes him look weak and despondent—as when he descended from a helicopter after his Tulsa rally, a MAGA hat drooping from his hand like a dead trout. (The Lincoln Project’s ad sets the scene to “Jurassic Park” theme music, played badly on melodica.) The image of Trump holding up a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church, intended as a metaphor of strength, now plays as shorthand for tone-deaf insincerity. Another ad, “#Trumpisnotwell,” mashes recent video of Trump gingerly walking down a West Point ramp with 2018 footage of him climbing onto Air Force One, with toilet paper apparently stuck to his shoe. In a line straight out of the Trump playbook, the ad suggests that the media is hiding information about his health. “The most powerful office in the world needs more than a weak, unfit, shaky president,” the narrator says, over echo-y tones of slasher-movie music.
It’s enough to inspire a presidential tweetstorm, or six. Lately, Trump and his surrogates have tried to fight back, calling the Lincoln Project founders “RINOS,” painting the group as elitists who think of Trump fans as deplorables. Trump has offered counter-images: This week, he retweeted a meme of himself in an Uncle Sam pose, pointing menacingly at the camera, between the words “In reality, they’re not after me, they’re after you. I’m just in the way.”
But the genius of the Lincoln Project ads is that they’re quite specifically after Trump, using his own favored tools of shamelessness and fearmongering, and turning them back on their source. Who knows? It could actually work.
I wonder how far out we are from having republican senators that are up for election start to trash him. There will be a point where trashing trump helps them....like their only hope will be to trash him
Labor Day
I read that Lindsey Graham broke his deputy dipshit's tweet on Nascar's banning of the confederate flag. Maybe it is already starting?
"A smart monkey doesn't monkey around with another monkey's monkey" - Darwin's Theory
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The Juggler
Behind that bush over there. Posts: 47,298
I wonder how far out we are from having republican senators that are up for election start to trash him. There will be a point where trashing trump helps them....like their only hope will be to trash him
Labor Day
I read that Lindsey Graham broke his deputy dipshit's tweet on Nascar's banning of the confederate flag. Maybe it is already starting?
There will be ripples here and there but if the polls hold close to this by Labor Day, look out...
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Kat
There's a lot to be said for nowhere. Posts: 4,772
Biden
This one's close to my heart. Now I'm off to have second breakfast.
I wonder how far out we are from having republican senators that are up for election start to trash him. There will be a point where trashing trump helps them....like their only hope will be to trash him
Labor Day
I read that Lindsey Graham broke his deputy dipshit's tweet on Nascar's banning of the confederate flag. Maybe it is already starting?
How many times have we seen that from Graham though? He will say something critical and then tomorrow he will be crying on TV about how strong tRump is and how mistreated he is.
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville 2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
I wonder how far out we are from having republican senators that are up for election start to trash him. There will be a point where trashing trump helps them....like their only hope will be to trash him
Labor Day
I read that Lindsey Graham broke his deputy dipshit's tweet on Nascar's banning of the confederate flag. Maybe it is already starting?
How many times have we seen that from Graham though? He will say something critical and then tomorrow he will be crying on TV about how strong tRump is and how mistreated he is.
Yeah. I'm not buying in until Trump and Lindsey start slap-fighting on Twitter. Dogs seldom turn on their owners.
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
I wonder how far out we are from having republican senators that are up for election start to trash him. There will be a point where trashing trump helps them....like their only hope will be to trash him
Labor Day
I read that Lindsey Graham broke his deputy dipshit's tweet on Nascar's banning of the confederate flag. Maybe it is already starting?
How many times have we seen that from Graham though? He will say something critical and then tomorrow he will be crying on TV about how strong tRump is and how mistreated he is.
Yeah. I'm not buying in until Trump and Lindsey start slap-fighting on Twitter. Dogs seldom turn on their owners.
Trump has dirt on him. Check out #ladygraham on twitter. DC male escorts are very familiar with Lindsey.
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville 2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
I wonder how far out we are from having republican senators that are up for election start to trash him. There will be a point where trashing trump helps them....like their only hope will be to trash him
Labor Day
I read that Lindsey Graham broke his deputy dipshit's tweet on Nascar's banning of the confederate flag. Maybe it is already starting?
How many times have we seen that from Graham though? He will say something critical and then tomorrow he will be crying on TV about how strong tRump is and how mistreated he is.
Yeah. I'm not buying in until Trump and Lindsey start slap-fighting on Twitter. Dogs seldom turn on their owners.
Trump has dirt on him. Check out #ladygraham on twitter. DC male escorts are very familiar with Lindsey.
Comments
He only cares about himself
I disagree that Biden can turn votes. He absolutely can and he is already, particularly among Catholics in the midwest who are not nearly as wed to Trump as Evangelicals. The polling already shows Trumps losing white Catholics to Biden, a demo that he really ate up in 16.
I don’t think that much of Biden...but just about anyone outside of Trump-licking Republicans can set a better tone.The needle can’t move until Trump is out and the obvious rhetoric is right in front of him.
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
I don't know...is still in the low-90s among Republicans? These candidates may be screwed either way. If they start trashing trump the majority (vast majority) of people in their own party might think twice. If they don't, it might hurt them with independents and never-Trumpers. I don't have a good sense of what incumbent GOP senators are up this year...but it probably depends on states. Moscow Mitch? It's Kentucky. Stick with Trump. Purple-states? That's trickier.
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Pearl Jam bootlegs:
http://wegotshit.blogspot.com
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/06/lincoln-project-ads-republicans-democrats-349184
What the Lincoln Project Ad Makers Get About Voters (and What Dems Don’t)
The Republicans of the Lincoln Project might have an advantage over Trump’s left-leaning opponents.
A still from "100,000 Dead," a Lincoln Project ad. | Youtube
By JOANNA WEISS
Joanna Weiss is the editor of Experience magazine, published by Northeastern University.
“100,000 Dead,” an ad from the anti-Trump super PAC known as The Lincoln Project, comes at you like a miniature horror film. It starts with a shot of seven white body bags, detailed enough that you can see the outline of limbs underneath, and the voice of President Donald Trump at a press briefing in February. The nation’s Covid-19 caseload will soon be “close to zero,” Trump says; his words repeat in an increasingly distorted voice, as the camera pulls back to reveal row upon row of body bags in the shape of an American flag. New words land on the screen with audible thumps: “100,000 dead Americans. One wrong president.” It ends with the faint sound of wind whistling, as if through a graveyard.
Down to the smallest detail, it’s a masterful nugget of compact filmmaking. And it helped draw attention to a renegade corps of Republican strategists, veterans of campaigns for George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, who are applying their attack-ad skills to their own party’s president—and going for the kill shot, every time. “Mourning in America,” their ad released in May, starts with a pointed reference to the Ronald Reagan slogan, then blames Trump for the full range of post-Covid despair, using images of hospital hallways, decrepit buildings and an upside-down flag. (Facebook slapped the ad with a “partly false” warning label, since it assigns Trump all of the blame for relief bills that were passed by the vast majority of Democrats in Congress.) “Debt,” released in late June, starts off like a History Channel documentary about the sacrifices made during World War II, and ends with an image of a Greatest Generation member, hooked up to a ventilator.
Some of the ads are running on TV, on Fox News or in battleground states. Some are simply released online, at a rapid pace. Many are based on assumptions that may or may not turn out to be true: that swing voters will be as unforgiving as Democrats about Trump’s Covid response, for instance, or that they’ll be bothered any more by Trump’s coarse rhetoric than they were, or weren’t, four years ago. Still, the Lincoln Project is clearly getting under the skin of the president and his supporters. And the evidence is not just raging tweets; in one of those Washington funhouse mirror moments, the Trump-friendly super PAC Club for Growth just released an ad attacking the Lincoln Project founders as if they were candidates themselves.
How has one renegade super PAC managed to trigger Trump and his allies so thoroughly? Part of it is surely frustration that a group of Republicans would issue a full-throated endorsement of Joe Biden. Part of it is skill: the Lincoln Project ads are slick, quick and filled with damning quotes and unflattering photos. But part of it might just be that Republicans are better at this than Democrats. Trump may sense that these ads are especially dangerous because they pack an emotional punch, using imagery designed to provoke anxiety, anger and fear—aimed at the very voters who were driven to him by those same feelings in 2016. And history, even science, suggests that might in fact be the case—that Republicans have a knack for scaring the hell out of people, and that makes for some potent ads.
Not every Lincoln Project video peddles in fear. Some are traditional political ads, overenthusiastically produced and applied to issues that might irk the president: supporting Democrat Steve Bullock for U.S. Senate in Montana, attacking Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. Some are 30-to-60-second versions of the kind of schoolyard taunting you might expect from Trump himself. In “Shrinking,” released after the president’s disappointing rally in Tulsa, a female voice mocks the size of the crowd: “You’ve probably heard this before, but it was smaller than we expected.”
The group’s most memorable ads, though, are the ones that are self-serious and brutal. Within days of news that Vladimir Putin paid the Taliban to target American soldiers, the Lincoln Project released two ads that hammer Trump as a lackey of foreign enemies, using language that, in another year, Republicans might have used to make Democrats look weak. “Betrayal” features Dan Barkhuff, a former Navy SEAL who declares that “any commander-in-chief with a spine would be stomping the living shit out of some Russians right now—diplomatically, economically, or, if necessary, with the sort of asymmetric warfare they’re using to send our kids home in body bags.” “Bounty” starts with images of flag-draped coffins and the sound of tapping drums, then pivots to a standard attack-ad trick: carefully-spliced clips of Trump and Putin at joint press conferences, the action drawn out so that every smile and handshake looks doubly sinister.
Stoking fear is a tried-and-true tactic of political advertising, stemming back to the Lyndon Johnson campaign’s 1964 anti-Barry Goldwater ad “Daisy.” But many of the most indelible ones have stemmed from the Republican camp, and over time, they’ve grown increasingly blunt. Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “Bear” ad used a grizzly as metaphor for the Soviet nuclear threat: “Isn't it smart to be as strong as the bear—if there is a bear?” the voice over intoned. That ad inspired George W. Bush’s “Wolves” from 2004, which accused John Kerry of being soft on terrorism. George H.W. Bush’s infamous 1988 Willie Horton ad linked Michael Dukakis to a prisoner who committed brutal crimes on a weekend pass, flashing the words “Kidnapping,” “Stabbing,” and “Raping” on the screen. (The ad has since been scorned, not just for exploiting racial stereotypes, but also for paving the way for tough-on-crime bills that had lasting social repercussions.)
The secret of fearmongering is a willingness to go there, and that’s where the Republicans of the Lincoln Project might have an advantage over Trump’s left-leaning opponents. The group’s founders aren’t calibrating their ads around a Democratic base that mistrusts the military, delves into nuance, or shies away from causing offense. That leaves ample room for dog-whistle symbols that range from clichés to horror-movie tropes: One ad accuses Trump of being played by China, and ends with the image of the White House, the entire screen tinted red.
Research shows there’s a reason these ads could be effective with Republicans voters: Conservatives are an especially fear-prone group. In a 2008 paper in the journal Science, researchers subjected a group of adults with strong political beliefs to a set of startling noises and graphic images. Those with the strongest physical reactions were more likely to support capital punishment, defense spending and the war in Iraq. A 2011 paper in the journal Cell found a correlation between conservative leanings and the size of the right amygdala, the portion of the brain that processes emotions in response to fearful stimuli. In her book Irony and Outrage, University of Delaware professor Dannagal Young points out that liberals and conservatives respond differently to entertainment rhetoric: Liberals have a higher tolerance for open-ended ambiguity, while conservatives look for closure and want problems to be solved.
That research helps explain why some attack ads move the needle with the right populations—and why some, in retrospect, don’t. Take the Hillary Clinton campaign ad, “Mirrors,” which aired about a month before the 2016 election. Hailed, in certain circles, as an instant classic, it showed a series of young girls looking at their own reflections as Trump’s voice played in the background, saying things like, “I’d look her right in that fat ugly face of hers.” Mother Jones deemed the ad “powerful”; Bustle called it “brilliant.” But it didn’t convert the white suburban women Clinton’s advisers surely hoped to reach, because it not only preached to the choir, but spoke in the language of the choir. It was too subtle, Young might say, asking viewers to connect the dots, rather than hammering in a dramatic point. And it played to voters’ conscience and values—the kinds of things voters have to think about—rather than their raw emotions.
Trump’s ads, by comparison, have required little thought; the dots are pre-connected in thick Sharpie ink. His first 2016 ad, “Great Again,” touted his willingness to utter the words “RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM,” which the ad displayed in all caps over images of masked fighters and photos of the San Bernardino shooters. (The same ad pledged that Trump would “cut the head off ISIS.”) His campaign’s fear-stoking 2018 anti-immigration ad, featuring an illegal immigrant convicted of murder and caravan footage that evoked an invasion, was so incendiary that many networks, including Fox News, refused to run it.
The Lincoln Project, too, knows how to deliver an unsubtle message, and Trump has given them some useful raw material. Recent news footage makes him look weak and despondent—as when he descended from a helicopter after his Tulsa rally, a MAGA hat drooping from his hand like a dead trout. (The Lincoln Project’s ad sets the scene to “Jurassic Park” theme music, played badly on melodica.) The image of Trump holding up a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church, intended as a metaphor of strength, now plays as shorthand for tone-deaf insincerity. Another ad, “#Trumpisnotwell,” mashes recent video of Trump gingerly walking down a West Point ramp with 2018 footage of him climbing onto Air Force One, with toilet paper apparently stuck to his shoe. In a line straight out of the Trump playbook, the ad suggests that the media is hiding information about his health. “The most powerful office in the world needs more than a weak, unfit, shaky president,” the narrator says, over echo-y tones of slasher-movie music.
It’s enough to inspire a presidential tweetstorm, or six. Lately, Trump and his surrogates have tried to fight back, calling the Lincoln Project founders “RINOS,” painting the group as elitists who think of Trump fans as deplorables. Trump has offered counter-images: This week, he retweeted a meme of himself in an Uncle Sam pose, pointing menacingly at the camera, between the words “In reality, they’re not after me, they’re after you. I’m just in the way.”
But the genius of the Lincoln Project ads is that they’re quite specifically after Trump, using his own favored tools of shamelessness and fearmongering, and turning them back on their source. Who knows? It could actually work.
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Susan Collins on the Biden train? It's too late for her though. Perhaps another time, another place, but the die are cast.
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana