Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/06/01/the-lincoln-projects-new-ad.html
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8 Likes
I think trump might know his supporters better than the Lincoln project does. If there were many “moderate” republicans bothered by trump’s encouraging racists, they would have jumped ship long ago.
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So this is the litmus test, I guess.
Which is more powerful - the brainwashing of making everyone salute the flag in classrooms, of draping it over everything good, of telling people that merely scuffing it is indecent… Or racism?
I hate to say it, but I suspect racism is more powerful for some. Because for the racists, it’s their flag too.
8 Likes
That was quite good for conservatives. They’re not exactly the most creative types.
10 Likes
I don’t get how that ad makes anyone who was going to vote for trump, not.
Also counting down the days until the republicans who run that campaign and people like Nicole Wallace turn on Biden to setup 2024, I give it about 20 days give or take into the presidency. They aren’t anyone’s friends, they are just momentarily fighting the same fight because they aren’t getting what they wanted.
7 Likes
I guess there are some good people in both parties. I kid. Republicans using Lincoln as their figurehead. He would be so… proud?
https://www.livescience.com/34241-democratic-republican-parties-switch-platforms.html
The GOP as a whole is dedicated to keeping people marginalized and poor so they have to work their entire lives to the benefit of Republicans who become obscenely wealthy while riding the backs of the people they exploit.
Some choose not to see it because they hope to join the wealthy elite at some point, and the depravations don’t impact them as hard because they are lucky enough to be white.
When the people get sick, they can fucking well die and make room for new workers. Why keep them around past their working prime?
No abortions, unless you’re rich, because the workforce will suffer. How you get that kid to working age is your problem. They’re willing to roll back the working age, if that will help. The factories miss the 10-year-olds. Plus, when they start earlier they can work longer. Greater value per asset.
Just in case, they’ll send as many jobs as they can overseas and then get the people who have been left jobless to blame anyone but the rich; ideally other people without a voice in how things work.
They’ll start a war, it’s great for business and they can send the poor to the front lines. Make higher education obscenely expensive and then offer them the GI Bill to give some of them incentive to risk their lives and die.
Their message in this ad isn’t wrong, but their party is.
14 Likes
The ads appear to be some kind of virtue signalling, because they’re attack ads without any stated goal. They’re not saying vote for Candidate X instead. They’re just saying Trump is an awful president. I agree, but without some kind of call to action, what does this ad do?
It’s almost as though some Republicans can say, in some post-Trump future, “we were against him the whole time.”
15 Likes
An attempt to shame those without shame by the other shameless?
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“When Nostradumbass goes low, kick him in the balls.”
-The Lincoln Project
7 Likes
View from outside the USA: Democrats have been pointing out that the stars and bars is the flag of racists and traitors for a long time now. The fact that (some) Republicans are prepared to say the same thing, might, just might, mean a general change in attitude. Fingers crossed.
16 Likes
If Republican voters decide to sit this one out completely I’m not gonna complain.
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“America or Trump.”
after bleeding the national flag of its symbolic colors and re-appropriating it for the more explicitly fascist blue/red lives matter garbage that exists wholly to shout down and negate the blm movement, i’ve been seeing more and more “trump” flags around, which indicates they’ve made their choice clear and aren’t even interested in feigning patriotism at this point.
4 Likes
They have. These are some of them. And every day, more and more people who are naturally conservative are starting to grapple with the fact that they don’t recognize their party anymore.
This group is doing important work: showing those voters that there is a way forward without feeling that they HAVE to vote for Trump. Are they going to start voting a straight Democratic ticket? Nah, of course not. But right now, we need to put the 4-alarm fire out. We can discuss the fine points of political theory later, when the flames are vanquished and everyone is pulled safely from the wreckage.
22 Likes
A bit of pedantry, but the “stars and bars” flag isn’t the one shown in the ad, it was the first confederate flag:
Which is still relevant since this is the current flag for Georgia:
Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama also still fly flags that are slightly modified confederate ones
11 Likes
Me either, but the ads aren’t even suggesting that. It would be interesting to see what actual conservative voters make of the ads.
If they keep at least one person who voted for Trump in 2016 to stay home and sit on their hands in November instead then it has accomplished it’s mission.
9 Likes
I’m not completely sure either. But I think that this podcast has some insight - coincidentally rebroadcast this week:
I think they’re trying to show the more moderate Republicans that have reservations that they’re not alone…
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The ads are suggesting that anyone who considers themselves a patriotic American cannot in good conscience vote for Trump. Whether conservatives choose to interpret that as “I should vote for Trump’s opponent” or “I should write in a better candidate” or “I should sit this out entirely” doesn’t really matter.
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Having southern roots myself, the Confederate flag holds strong emotional ties to many Southerners as a symbol of pride and heritage. It’s hard for those not from the South to fully understand why - and I agree that it’s a dump appropriation and completely whitewashes the core issues that lead up to the Civil War in the first place.
The war was fought almost entirely for the “right” of Southern states to not only continue but expand slavery as this was not only central to these state’s entire economy livelihood but also an identifying feature for “us vs. them” mentality - that the South was special and different from Northern states. (I’ve been reading Doris Goodwin’s Team of Rivals lately).
That mentality still has a very strong emotional appeal to people in the deep south. So like how the Nazi party appropriated the ancient symbol of the swastika to the point where it represents a completely different meaning today, the Confederate flag means something entirely different to Southerners than it does to most non-Southerners. Most rational people see it as a symbol of racial oppression and slavery while they see it as a symbol of pride and history. Not sure there will ever be a way to abridge these two viewpoints.
I see this ad as not really accomplishing much as those who already identify with the Confederate flag will just harden their views and rally behind the symbol rather than disavow it because of Trump.
5 Likes
I am loving the shade thrown by the Lincoln Project.
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