Autumn Leaves by Geoff Carter « The Pen in Hand Blog

Gwenllian Rees, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Geoff Carter

It’s that time of year. Autumn. I took my dog for a walk along the river trail yesterday. It was about fifty degrees with a cool north wind blowing, but the sun was out, warm and inviting when it was able to peek through the foliage. The trees were just turning color. Beautiful yellows, crimson, and hints of vermillion foliage spackled the canopy above us. It was beautiful. But, of course, everything beautiful in this world is tempered.

Our charming autumn coincides with the midterm election season, and—with that, our senses have been bombarded with an endless blizzard of attack ads, half-truths, intimations, and downright lies. They’re all over television, the internet, social media, streaming services, and—yes, even the news media.

One of the recurring messages they’ve been hitting us over the head with—especially in Wisconsin—has been crime. Both sides have been attempting to scare the bejesus out of voters with ads featuring hundreds of felons indiscriminately released from jail, assault guns flooding the streets, rampant defunding of police departments, along with insinuations that some candidates have supported the Kenosha rioters. And closely tied to this issue (in the minds of marketers at least) is immigration. Some ads would have us believe that the influx of immigrants into this country is directly related to crime—an assertion that is by and large bogus. According to this Cato Institute report, “illegal immigration conviction rate is 45% below those of native-born Americans in Texas.” There may be grains of truth in some of these ads, but not much more than that. Half-truths, inaccuracies, and misrepresentations abound. And these ads keep dropping like autumn leaves; they just don’t end.

Another hot button issue in this election cycle is reproductive rights. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe-v-Wade last spring, women across the country have been furiously protesting the loss of their right to choose. Republicans—some openly—have come out in support of a national abortion ban despite the fact that the vast majority of Americans (Republicans and Democrats alike) support safe and legal abortion. Now commercials featuring rape victims, abused women, and even one candidate tracking women near abortion clinics have been repeated endlessly, stoking anger and fear of a United States with fewer reproductive rights—with the hope of turning out the female vote. In terms of both these hot-button issues, it is not necessarily the content of these political ads which are objectionable, it is the frequency with which the voter is subjected to them. Probably—as an informal estimate—I’d guess some of these ads air at least four times in a half-hour.

While both reproductive rights and crime are legitimate issues that need to be seriously addressed by policymakers, their presentation in the context of campaign hysteria does not do justice to the citizens they affect. Commercials showing children being kidnapped, gunplay on the streets, or women being electronically tracked outside abortion clinics are not meant to appeal to thoughtful, discriminating voters. They’re designed to push our buttons and scare the hell out of us. And it works. It’s expensive, but it works.

This has been a year of record campaign spending in Wisconsin. According to the website Open Secrets, Republican Senatorial candidate Ron Johnson has raised over $17 million dollars and spent $15 million of that on ads while his opponent Mandela Barnes has raised $7 million and spent about $5 million. Part of this disparity stems from Barnes’ fundraising problems due to his late primary win and his lack of name recognition, but these amounts only scratch the surface; they do not even include outside PAC money.

According to an article in The Wisconsin Examiner, Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers have spent $38 million since the August primary while Republican Tim Michels has spent a little more than half that. And here’s another fun fact. These numbers do not even take into account the rivers of money being poured into these campaigns from outside sources like PACS, lobbyists, or special interest groups.

The point is not (even though the result probably hinges on it) the disparities in the amounts being raised and spent, but the huge amount of cash enmeshed in the electoral process. Money that is being paid to marketing companies, ad agencies, pollsters, campaign managers, and for television airtime; money used to hammer home the same message over and over and over again. The ads campaigns are paying for are not logical issue-oriented arguments designed to help a voter understand which candidate might stand on a matter that may affect her life—issues like the economy, healthcare, climate change, crime, reproductive rights, or gun control. Instead, campaign ads take the low road, pushing arguments designed to push the voter’s emotional buttons. They try to scare us, antagonize us, and play to our lowest instincts.

This system—obviously—caters to monied interests. Tim Michels, the Republican candidate for governor is a multi-millionaire who has already put $12 million of his own money into the race. Of course, this is indicative of the sort of exclusiveness now implicit in our electoral system. A normal guy cannot hope to compete with a Michels or to crack the party machinery needed to finance a local—let alone a national—campaign. It doesn’t have to be this way; other countries have smaller elections. According to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, a candidate for parliament in England can spend only a maximum of one thousand pounds during the course of a campaign.

Political ads (and the thousand-dollar bills that pay for them) are still falling as thickly and furiously as autumn leaves. Like the leaves, they’ll soon be gone, memories of a past season. Unfortunately, they are not as beautiful or as elegant as the falling leaves. Quite the opposite. They are tawdry reminders that our political system is composed of monied interests, driven by monied interests, and is used for monied interests.

These ads appeal to our lowest sensibilities: fear, anger, hate, envy, and selfishness. They are snapshots of what we have become.