Minnesota Report
Crime is often an issue Republicans deploy to unsettle the electorate and instill fear as a factor in an election. The latest commercial by the Scott Jensen (R-MN) campaign has sunk to a new low in Minnesota campaign advertising. The ad entitled “Safety” (2022) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNkbWtxlI7U shows a young woman getting into an SUV and driving off to melodic music, which soon changes to a more foreboding note and an annoying atonal note is struck to create an unsettling scene.
Her vehicle is boxed in, and the female voice over says 774 carjacking have occurred since Tim Walz was elected as governor. This is a blatant logical fallacy of Post hoc ergo propter hoc or argues causation just because something else follows.
The fearmongering and pandering are clear and merely an appeal to ignorance.
It is reminiscent of other ads like the “Hands” (1990) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIyewCdXMzk in the US Senate contest between US Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Harvey Gant (D-NC) or the “Willie Horton” ad in (1988) https://www.history.com/news/george-bush-willie-horton-racist-ad in the George H W Bush (R-ME) contest with Gov Michael Dukakis (D-MA).
The fact political commercial can be trotted out and in the aftermath of Donald J Trump (R-MN), who spouted over 30,000 lies while in office, our community standards are ebbing. This win at all costs, damn the torpedoes full speed ahead approach is undermining, our democracy, and our society writ large.
The problem is in a country of free speech, lies and liars get equal time with those who tell the truth, but the problem is both get equal time if they can pay for it in a political commercial.