Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign is shelling out nearly $5 million to run a 30-second ad filled with skewed claims across battleground states. The ad features an unflattering zoom-in on former President Donald Trump, sweat beading on his face. Following this depiction, it goes on to showcase Project 2025, a policy framework destined for a conservative presidential administration. However, this document has been repeatedly rejected by Trump himself, leading one to wonder about the necessity of its inclusion in Harris’s advertisement.
Ignoring Trump’s disassociation from Project 2025, the ad asserts a connection between him and certain drastic policies within this document. Democrats claim that this document mirrors Trump’s viewpoints, regardless of his vehement denials. Harris’s advertisement feels the need to emphasize this, unfounded as it may be, focusing on negative implications that could potentially affect multiple American demographics should Trump’s administration continue.
The ad then paints a picture of various types of Americans whom it suggests will be detrimentally affected by Trump’s reign. These include families with kids, anxious elderly couples reviewing their financials, and a young woman in consultation with her doctor.A classical bank represents the beneficiaries of Trump’s rule, according to Harris: the ultra-rich. With this angle, the ad narrows its focus on the adverse effects of Trump’s administration while downplaying any potential benefits.
Narrating over these biased scenes, the ad declares, ‘Donald Trump makes a lot of promises, but we can be sure of one thing: If he wins, he’ll ignore all checks that rein in a president’s power. It’s all in Trump’s Project 2025 agenda.’ Again, this is stated despite the fact that Trump has maintained he knows nothing about Project 2025 and has shown no affiliation with it.
With a dark forecast, the ad portrays a grim future: ‘Higher cost on groceries. Cuts to Social Security and Medicare. More tax breaks for billionaires. And a national abortion ban putting women’s health at risk. A second Trump term: more unhinged, unstable and unchecked.’ The ad further distorts Trump’s policies, attributing the undesirable aspects of Project 2025 to his agenda.
One point that the ad makes is that Trump’s proposed tariffs on food imports and undocumented immigrant deportations could inflate grocery prices. The information is presented without any context to its potential advantages-such as job creation for legal citizens, national security improvement, and so on. The ad frames it as nothing more than an inconvenient increase in costs.
Social Security was another contentious issue presented in Harris’s ad. She alleges that Trump wished for cuts or privatization, a decision he discussed but then withdrew. The ad conveniently leaves out that Trump has since advocated for eliminating taxes on Social Security income, which could greatly benefit the elderly.
Project 2025 does propose modifications to Medicare, and the Harris campaign doesn’t miss the opportunity to attribute these changes to Trump. Despite his assurances of sheltering Medicare from cuts, the ad insinuates the opposite, further muddling his actual stance.
Trump’s promises to extend his 2017 tax cuts, which favored the wealthy, are understandably controversial, but the ad ignores the beneficial impact of these cuts on the economy. Meanwhile, despite confirming that he would veto a national abortion ban, the ad strongly suggests Trump would instate such a law, highlighting his historical support for similar measures.
Harris uses these distortions as a sort of Mandela effect, striving to convince Americans that these were the reasons they voted Trump out of office in 2020. She uses Project 2025 as a convenient scapegoat for any negative policies associated with Trump, even though he has numerous times dismissed any connection with it.
She frequently questions the credibility of Project 2025 at her rallies, evoking shock and disbelief by telling her followers, ‘Can you believe they put that in writing?’ This manipulative tactic serves to further her narrative against Trump and strengthen her campaign’s hold on the audience.
The Harris ad pinpoints two highly controversial issues – the economy and abortion – assuming these matters resonate with her audience. By leveraging fear of economic decline under Trump and emphatically supporting abortion rights, Harris hopes she can rally voters to her cause, especially women who prioritize reproductive rights.
The ad, however, overlooks the fact that economic stability and personal freedoms can coexist. It portrays these issues as incompatible under a conservative administration, thereby implying a sense of dread and urgency among voters. It’s clear that the Harris campaign is comfortable exploiting these strongly emotional topics with disinformation and biased perspectives.