J.P. Sottile for BuzzFlash: Negative Political Advertising: When the Meanness of Means Becomes an End Unto Itself
November 6, 2022
By J.P. Sottile, Founder and Editor of Newsvandal
Negative political ads have always worked, and that fact has always been depressing. But they used to use "coded language" and "dog whistles" because there was still an element of shame built into "going negative." Candidates would usually distance themselves from specious and offensive ads which were often run by shadowy groups designed to give the beneficiary of the slander some plausible deniability. That's because polling showed that while negative ads often worked on voters, those selfsame voters told pollsters that they didn't like negative campaigning, and a candidate's "character," much like "likeability," was still a factor in their decision to pull the lever.
That's faded over time as our culture and society became more and more like a collection of badly written headlines at the supermarket checkout stand. But still there was some residue of shame still built into our public discourse. Now, though, that's gone. Now you can not only "get away with" saying or doing anything, no matter how fanciful the lie or how unhinged the claim, but those who do so are likely to be rewarded for being defiantly crass and unabashedly callow and blatant mendacious. And now they don't need someone else to do the dirty work of blowing a dog whistle on their behalf. Instead they can not only "say the quiet part out loud," but the crowd jeers them on for yelling it into a bullhorn.
We are about to find out if "we, the people" are not only "okay with this," but if we fully embrace this as the way we want to interact as a society and function as a polity ... reveling in the utter shamelessness that necessarily comes when the ends not only justify the means, but the meanness of the means becomes an end unto itself.
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