Trump tweet ‘fearmongering’
Pinned at the top of President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed on Thursday was a video. The man on the screen is bald with a moustache and wispy chin hairs. Smiling, he announces, ‘‘I [expletive] killed cops.’’
The man is Luis Bracamontes, a twice-deported Mexican immigrant who was given the death penalty in April for killing two Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies in 2014. At the time of the shooting, Bracamontes was in the US illegally – and now, with the midterm elections looming, he’s the star of the GOP’S latest campaign advertisement.
‘‘Illegal immigrant, Luis Bracamontes, killed our people!’’ reads text on the 53-second video, which is littered with audible expletives. ‘‘Democrats let him into our country . . . Democrats let him stay.’’
The text is superimposed over videos of Bracamontes appearing to show no remorse for his crimes, and even declaring, ‘‘I’m gonna kill more cops soon.’’
More footage follows: Throngs of unidentified people rioting in unidentified streets and pushing down fences in undisclosed locations. A Fox News correspondent interviewing a man identified only as ‘‘deported immigrant in caravan,’’ who asks to be pardoned for attempted murder.
‘‘Who else would Democrats let in?’’ the video asks. An image of Bracamontes smiling reappears before being replaced by text, ‘‘President Donald Trump and Republicans are making America safe again.’’
The video, which was promoted by the president on Thursday afternoon to his 55.5 million Twitter followers, came with an urge from Trump to ‘‘Vote Republican now!’’ As of early yesterday, the video had been viewed more than 1.8 million times, drawing widespread condemnation.
Trump and Republicans were criticised for ‘‘fearmongering,’’ and the ad has been decried as ‘‘racist,’’ with many likening it to the infamous ‘‘Willie Horton’’ ads supporting George H.W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election. Only the video shared by Trump, critics say, is ‘‘far worse.’’
John Harwood tweeted ‘‘as you recall, Bush campaign distanced itself from the Willie Horton TV ad. This is coming directly from the President of the United States. From dog whistle to guttural scream’’.
About 30 years ago, William Horton, a relatively unknown African American felon in Massachusetts, became ‘‘Willie Horton,’’ the focal point of attack ads from Bush’s campaign against Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential nominee and governor of Massachusetts.
Horton, a convicted murderer serving a life-sentence, was temporarily released from prison in June 1986 as part of Massachusetts’ weekend furlough programme, which Dukakis supported, and escaped. In April 1987, he raped a white woman and stabbed her white fiance.
The ‘‘Revolving Door’’ television ad accusing Dukakis of
‘‘As you recall, Bush campaign distanced itself from the Willie Horton TV ad. This is coming directly from the President of the United States. From dog whistle to guttural scream’’. John Harwood, Trump critic
being soft on crime was largely masterminded by Roger Ailes, who founded Fox News in 1996. The spot, which showed convicts coming in and out of prison through a revolving door made of prison bars, was meant to allude to Horton, Rolling Stone reported.
‘‘The only question, is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand – or without it,’’ Ailes once told a reporter, according to Rolling Stone.
Another ad called ‘‘Weekend Passes,’’ run by the National Political Action Committee, took things a step further and included Horton’s mugshot.
That ad was created by Larry Mccarthy, who had worked under Ailes for six years during the 1980s, the New Yorker reported.
‘‘This was a classic example of racial cuing,’’ Claire Jean Kim, a political-science professor at the University of California, Irvine, said in a 2012 PBS special. ‘‘The insinuation is, if you elect Governor Dukakis as president we’re going to have black rapists running amok in the country. It’s playing to white fears about black crime.’’
Whether it was simply an attempt to criticise Dukakis’ crime policies or if it was an appeal to racial fears, the ‘‘Willie Horton’’ ads worked. ‘‘Willie Horton was devastating to Mr Dukakis,’’ the New York Times wrote in 1990.
Kim, who described the ad’s strategy as ‘‘incredibly effective’’ and ‘‘masterful,’’ said even decades later, it still ‘‘sets the bar for racial cuing.’’
‘‘Candidates talk about not wanting to be Willie Hortonised,’’ she said.
On Thursday, critics slammed Trump and Republicans for promoting what was described as a ‘‘Willie Horton redux’’ by both CNN’S Chris Cuomo and the New Republic, a left-leaning magazine.
‘‘This may be the most desperate and vile ad since Willie Horton,’’ tweeted former Labour Secretary Robert Reich. ‘‘Trump and Republicans don’t want to talk about the fact that they plan to repeal the ACA, gut Social Security, Medicare, & Medicaid, and cut taxes even further for their donors, so they’ve resorted to fearmongering.’’
Eric Umansky tweeted: ‘‘Thirty years ago, George H.W. Bush released his infamous fearmongering, racist ad on Willie Horton. This Trump ad is worse. Far worse.’’
One Twitter user condemned the Bracamontes’ video as ‘‘an absolutely disgusting mix of ethnic nationalism . . . that makes the willie horton ad look sensitive.’’
The ad was even criticised by Senator Jeff Flake, R-ariz.
‘‘This is just a new low in campaigning,’’ Flake said, according to a tweet from CNN’S Jake Tapper. ‘‘It’s sickening.’’
Jamie Weinstein, host of a podcast at the conservative National Review Online, tweeted that ‘‘This is, without question, a racist ad.’’
A number of people pushed back against characterising the ad as ‘‘racist.’’
‘‘Not racist but definitely nationalist, and in the accurate sense of the word,’’ one Twitter user wrote in response to Weinstein, ‘‘not the hyped up new definition which conflates it with ethno-nationalism.’’
Another person tweeted, ‘‘The ad is 100% truthful.’’
The video was discussed at length by Cuomo and Don Lemon on Thursday. After pointing out that ‘‘much of the footage’’ in the ad ‘‘comes from Fox,’’ a network often praised by Trump and oncehelmed by Ailes, the ‘‘Willie Horton’’ ad creator, Cuomo called both ads ‘‘grossly distorted, bigoted, but also effective’’.
‘‘At a time when the president says he’s calling for unity, all he seems to be pushing for real is fear and division,’’ Cuomo said.
Trump, Cuomo said, is attempting to say ‘‘Democrats are responsible for the atrocious act’’ Bracamontes committed.
Tom Perez, chair of the Democratic National Committee, hit back at Trump during an appearance on ‘‘Cuomo Prime Time’’ on Thursday.
‘‘This is distracting, divisive Donald at his worst,’’ said Perez, who later noted that immigration is Trump’s ‘‘dog whistle of all dog whistles.’’ ‘‘This is fearmongering.’’
With only five days until the midterm elections, Trump has returned to immigration with renewed gusto. His antiimmigration stance was critical to his success during the 2016 presidential election and ‘‘he is counting on similarly inflammatory words and images to help the GOP hold its congressional majorities,’’ The
Post’s Seung Min Kim reported. Just this week, Trump publicly vowed to end birthright citizenship and said he would deploy as many as 15,000 active-duty troops to the border.
Conservative commentator Scott Jennings told Cuomo he wasn’t surprised by the ad.
‘‘I don’t see anything in this video that I haven’t heard from the president consistently for the past couple of years,’’ Jennings said. But, he added, that ‘‘it’s not the message I would be closing the campaign on’’.
Lemon echoed his fellow anchor when rebuking the ad.
‘‘It’s a naked appeal to fear and hate, and it is racist,’’ Lemon said.
Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Rice University, brought up Willie Horton on Lemon’s show, noting that while the ad was effective in the sense that Bush secured a victory in 1988, it did little to help Bush’s personal image.
‘‘The Willie Horton ad gave George Herbert Walker Bush his one big black eye in history,’’ Brinkley said. –