As someone who works in advertising I am more than aware of the power we sometimes have to put fear into people. Fear that you might smell, be ugly, have no friends, be uncool. I hate it when ads play on those fears, but quite frankly it seems we have nothing on the ads of American politics.John Mccain's campaign ads so far have been shocking, doing the Republican thing of playing on peoples fear of the unknown. America is a divided country, and the Republicans are masters of manipulating people that are not (as much as we like to believe) totally stupid, but in most cases just very badly misled.
Frankly with ads like these (below, ads with explanations) , pushing fear, outright lying, manipulating facts, its no wonder that people who don't know any better vote for these selfish cheating scumbags.
Please explain to me John Mccain how you are any better than Robert Mugabe? A tyrant you say, fake democracy you say. Is he not just doing the same as you, using fear to make people vote one way? Scaring people and lying to them in order to win an election that everyone else around the world knows should be won by the only candidate with real ideas for a better country?
Fuck you Mccain. Fuck you Republican party. Frankly America has no hope when the world lets a country be dominated by this type of campaigning. We should have acted on Mugabe, we should have acted on Darfur, we should act on this. The most powerful country in the world should not be run by people who are happy to cheat and lie and manipulate the people they are supposed to be helping.
Image from Stu's Views
4 comments:
It's amazing how low politicians will sink to. But in this day and age, the thing is, do they expect people to be so DUMB that they'll buy whatever crap they dish out? Good post. That image/poster was really awful.
Aside from personal views, Mr M, how could you blame McCain for doing it? It works.
Politics is zero sum. 49% of the market means nothing if the other guy get's 51 %.
Latest polls shows McCain pulling ahead (within margin off error but still). Fear works.
And Anjali, it's not about being dumb (same assumption made by Mr M, that people don't know better), it's all about emotion not reason.
Politicians, like good ad guys, con artists, movie directors, the great Noel Gallagher, know this.
Hate to say it but that is a classic democratic fault. They do not understand cultural/emotional populisme.
Steven Colbert joked about truthiness, but it is real and it is very powerfull.
Again a great post Mr M. You should def read "the political brain" it's a great book on this very subject.
Hey Nicky - while the humour of the poster is not lost on me (I do think there's an amusing element, even if it is awful), I think that allowing fear tactics to work their harm is not prudent in politics. It may play on the population's emotions, but it also sends the message that McCain thinks that the population is just that - a toy to be manipulated. The polls may show him as being ahead, and if he wins then there's only one thing I can say - the Americans who elected him and his highly controversial VP candidate Sarah Palin - deserve them! Peace!
Anjali - Sadly yes they do. And people do. If all you're ever exposed to is this kind of talk, and the people around you have grown up believe it, its no wonder that people buy it.
Look at kids who grow up in posh houses and go to school at Eton, and then have no concept of real life.
Nicky - Because I don't believe people should be scared or bullied into doing anything. If you want to gain sales as the expense of your brand then sure thing. These ads are manipulative, and misleading even aside from their reliance on fear.
Anjali 2 - Sadly I think that in America people do believe it. Fear of liberals is so hard wired through this kind of promotion that the Republicans always play on it. Look at the bile Fox News comes out with. If you watch Bowling for Columbine you see just how it works. (and a great cartoon on it).
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