Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History Presidential Campaign Advertising 20240712

Captioning performed by vitac. So there were obviously pros and cons in this ad. Some pros, southern voters appreciated moral compass of ford by declining this playboy offer he got. Jimmy carters campaign was hurt by the fact he did a playboy article. The moral majority, rebirthed the strategy, conservative idea of we are christians, sexual restraint and not just racial segregation like happened in the past. Okay. Im going to talk about the fallacies used in fords ad. First is hasty generalization, when you take one fact and use it to draw a whole conclusion. The pastors statement is not exactly enough evidence to promote and support that ford would be a good president just because he did this one thing. Another fallacy used would be moral equivalence. Thats like saying that one action of somebody is just as bad as an action of somebody else. So they are directly attacking carter because he did do a playboy interview. They are trying to say ford didnt and carter did, hes doing something more heinous. Secondly anecdotally evidence. Theres no proof ford was offered an interview by playboy and he declined it. This was all purely anecdotally what he told chris well and what he decided to tell his whole church. Were going to may one more ad. I grew up in the church, a christian high school. You look at the way someone lives their life and you believe them. Grab them by the love our neighbors as ourself. When he used force to clear Lafayette Park and stand in front of st. Johns. Bludgeon and gas Peaceful Protesters for a ridiculous photo photoop. The moment he held up that bible, he revealed this president is using us. Christians have to resist being used to justify things jesus would never justify. Very fine people on both sides. Love is patient, love is kichbd, love does not boast. I am the chosen one. Love does not delight in eiffel. As a christian, we simply cannot allow this man to be elected. Okay. So before we examine that, were first going to look at where President Trump currently stands with more religious and christian voters. President trump and his Reelection Campaign have largely centered this platform around winning over the christian perhaps more religious vote. Republicans are also appealing to voters of faith by claiming democrats have unfairly criticized Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett for her catholicism, although so far no democratic senator brought up the issue of her religion catholicism. In that ad, whats the message . In the 2016 election eight in ten selfidentified born again evangelical christians say they voted for President Trump whereas just 16 voted for clinton. During the 2016 election and the current election, President Trump has largely centered his campaign by attempting to wip over the religious voter. In fact, eric trump in a recent interview last week said his dad, President Trump, quote, literally saved christianity and the Democratic Party, far left, the party of atheists and they want to attack christianity. Its a way to sway the religious voters from voting for President Trump. Some current parallel were seeing more recently. Recently a new super pac called dub not our faith includes past faith adviser from president barack obama is designed to chip away at christian support for President Trump in the election. They released one portfolio spe hasnt been released publicly but to the associated press. According to the ap, one of the ads claims President Trump has, quote, used christianity for his own purposes and adds christian voters dont need trump to save them. The truth is that trump needs christians to save his flailing campaign. In the last ad and in this ad about President Trump, were seeing a parallel of christian voters kind of being used and christian values rather than being practiced are used for political gain and political purpose rather than being practiced. So like said, the ads are really similar because they showcase the christian vote and how these candidates really want to gain onto that christian vote. In america 70. 6 of people are christian. Again, huge part of the vote. If you get the christian vote, it seems like youre going to win. Then these ads differ because in fords ad he shows his own beliefs, or at least what we think are in his own beliefs in an anecdotally way. By his refusal to be in the playboy ad, he was part of the moral majority. However, trumps ad kind of shows his lack of understanding of christian beliefs, and im sure they put that purposefully in there. It hinders him from getting the vote of the moral majority that ford set up. Okay. Some of the fallacies used in both ad, they both used hasty generalization. The second ad is saying that trump is not a real christian because he continuously does things that are not christlike. That does not necessarily give enough information to say that he would be a bad president. Also moral equivalence, the first one, you know, i already mentioned that they are saying carter is bad for doing that playboy interview and ford is good for not doing that playboy interview. The antitrump ad says that because trump is faking being a christian, hes unfit for office, which is not necessarily correlated. Thats all we have. All right. One thing thats interesting about the ford ad is the fact that he was running against jimmy carter, which who is known as being a very a man of deep faith, a southern baptist. So it was interesting that he did that playboy interview. All right. Lets get us back. In that interview he did talk if you go back and look at the interview, he did talk a lot about his faith. It was a really indepth interview. Because it was in playboy, that was the big controversy. I noticed the group put rick perfectlistein, reagan conservatism, talks a lot about jimmy carter. I put that podcast with Rick Pearlstein in your syllabus to understand that story more, breaks it down. So that brings us to the 1980s. Here we are, 1980s. So you notice theres a similar theme in the title of some of the things that are going on there. Whats the word . War. War. The different kinds. You do see a lot of tension happening in the 1980s. Military, political, cultural. So you have the culture wars, the war on drugs, the end of the cold war as we set up in the slide, the group so articulately explained in their presentation, the Republican Party really did emerge as the moral majority in the 1980s as the nation fought over a host of culture war issues. The Political Party realignment is also pretty much in place by the 1980s. We may be seeing some Political Party realignment right now. The tectonic plates may be shifting under us as we speak. But until over the last 40 years, Political Party realignment with states traditionally democratic and states traditionally republican is set for the most part by the 1980s. So you have mostly the south has gone from the Democratic Party in the 30s, 40s, and 50s over to Republican Party by 70s, 80s and certainly 90s. Many africanamericans are going to remain democrats. You do still have a lot of people in the middle that vote for both parties but thats the general Political Party realignment. You have a group known as the reagan democrats, many White Working Class men and women that lead to the landslide elections. Since johnson, reagan is going to be the next one. In 1984 you have that morning in america commercial, which is a very famous, positive ad. Were not going to look at that in class, but i do, as i said earlier, encourage you to watch it. You have a very noticeable shift to negative ads in 1988 when george h. W. Bush is running against michael dukakis. I did want to point out, and i know youve already read this, but from page 410 to 414 in your book, it does an entire case study of the ad that is going to be featured in this last presentation thats known as the Willie Horton ad. So with that were going to introduce the last group who also has a prerecorded presentation. So ill have you stand, caleb, rachel, aiden and sidney. Lets go ahead and give them a hand anyway. [ applause ] yeah, thank you. Take a bow. Is there anything about this ad that surprised you or that you found interesting as you were analyzing it . Its really short. Its like 30 seconds, but it was still really, really uncomfortable, the general publics perception of dukakis. Thirty seconds of being uncomfortable. The Willie Horton ad is still ramaphosaed a whole lot. With that do you want to take it away. Hi this is an analysis of campaign ads through history. Specifically talking about george h. W. Bush versus donald j. Trump. This is by sidney, rachel, caleb and aiden. A quick introduction in 19 the 88 the stage was set for whaches going to be one of the most bitter president ial elections yet. The candidates were Vice President george h. W. Bush versus Massachusetts Governor michael dukakis. Dukakis had drastically different views when it came to policies of child care, health care, education and housing. The Bush Campaign used dukakis views against them saying while bush supports the Death Penalty, dukakis opposes Death Penalty and allows first degree murderers to have weekend passes, referring to dukakis policies. It demonized furloughs. A black man, Willie Horton, escaped during furlough was used as his center. Using an ad how he was harsher on crime than his opponent dukakis this plays on the racist idea that only black americans are considered criminals. This pushes the racist agenda. This ad released was considered a hail mary for the Bush Campaign. Ahead of the ads dukakis was leading bush by a fairly large margin. After that bush went on to win the presidency. The ad swayed voters decisions greatly. Here is the campaign ad featuring Willie Horton that was so controversial. Bush and dukakis on crime. Bush supports the Death Penalty for first degree murderers. Dukakis not only opposes the Death Penalty he allowed first degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison. One was Willie Horton, who murdered a boy in a robbery stabbing him 19 times. Despite a life sentence, horton received 10 weekend passes from prison. Horton fled, kidnapped a young couple, stabbing the man and repeatedly raping his girlfriend. Weekend prison passes, dukakis on crime. Now that weve seen the ad, lets take a look at some back story an kd context for time surrounding his release. Willie horton was arrested along with three men for the robbery of a gas station. While they were there one of the men stabbed the boy. No one admitted to the murder but continually pointed fingers until detectives pinned it on horton. He denied it but was sentenced to life in prison. He was given passes. On the tenth one he ran. He was found miles away after breaking into a couples home and assaulting them. He claimed he was innocent on this matter but denied further weekend passes. One interesting thing about horton, he actually never went by willie, the organization that founded the ad made that up. As for michael dukakis, he was the governor of massachusetts where horton was convicted of robbery and murder. He opposed the Death Penalty and promoted furlough programs to ease the tensions and provide felons gradual integration back into society. The ad itself was actually funded and released by an independent group of bush supporters, not the official Bush Campaign. The ad only ran for a month on Cable Networks meaning it did not get a lot of traction until much later and eventually taken down in a place with a similar bush sponsored ad with the same message but did feature the mug shot of horton or mention him by name. Now, lets talk about strategy and fallacies in this ad. It made strong use to the public, takes advantage of general fear of Violent Crime and need for safety in the american home. Striking fear into a soft oppose crime, bush was able to discredit and erase trust they had in them. We see two different fall sis here. First, the false dilemma or false dichotomy where two opposing options presented as the only outcomes. In this case the ad claims either the public elects dukakis, who allows crime to run rampant on the street with weekend passes. Or they elect bush, who not only opposes weekend passes promotes Death Penalty for first degree murderers allowing for a safer environment across the country. Second, the slippery slope fallacy where the cause and effect chain is exaggerated and outcomes suggested arent necessarily guaranteed. With the horton ad we see the following progression. Dukakis opposes Death Penalty and supports weekend pass. Therefore Willie Horton got a pass and vaulted the couple. Therefore, its the cause of violence. Dukakis did support prison passes and horton did use it to commit crimes. However not all prisoners who use weekend passes follow in hortons example. In fact, these passes were typically awarded for good behavior. As sidney mentioned, this ad spread widespread fear and anxiety about having a president who supported prison passes. As a result it turned the tide in bushs favor. This ad was a pretty low blow to his opponents campaign. When dukakis failed to respond for a significant amount of time, bush had sealed his victory. This ad was released on july 15th, 2020 and went relatively unnoticed, as much as any election ad can. However, on august 26th, 2020, Vice President mike pence said during an interview you wont be safe in joe Bidens America, which, obviously, is the name of an idea behind the ad. His statement gained a lot of traction and as a result the Trump Campaign pushed the ad significantly harder. This ad was a direct response to specific violent black lives matter protests which although not confined to these months were covered heavily by the media in june and july making it the perfect time for the Trump Campaign to promote the ad. Its stikingly similar to the bush ad we viewed earlier. Firstly, both ads use path oss as appeals to the public. They both trust audience to trust the other candidate less. Specifically they are both an attempt to make the other candidate look incompetent at keeping the countrys citizens safe. It received hamp backlash from democrats as it was targeted and shown to centrist. 41 dislike ratio, might not seem terrible but low for the site. Its important to keep in mind its a political ad and relatively common of political ads. Nonetheless, the top four comments are some variation of which is whats happening in trumps america not Bidens America or something similarly negative. Not to say the ad isnt successful. Its arguable any publicity is good publicity. It has strengths and weaknesses which ill let aiden point out. First, though, im going to play the ad. Radical left wing agenda, take other our cities, defund the police, pressure more towns to follow, and joe biden stands with them, Cutting Police funding. Yes, absolutely. Eliminating cash bail, letting criminals back on the street. Violent crime exploding. Innocent children fatally shot. Who will be there to answer the call when your children arent safe . Im donald j. Trump, and i approve this message. Both president george h. W. Bushs ad and Donald Trumps adin voek fear used on certain subjects. Bushs ad focused on the fear of letting criminals free from prison while truchz ad focused on riots surrounding black lives Matter Movement. Both ads attempted to discredit the opposing candidate and i believe bushs ad saw greater success in comparison to trumps ad which gained traction among supporters has been unsuccessful in really discrediting biden and gaining traction outside of trumps supporters. Mainly because the scenarios are slightly different. Bush was fighting to become a new president while trump is fighting to remain president , which takes away from the fear of living in Bidens America. Right now america is so divided under trumps presidency. To conclude trumps advertisement used strategy appealed to growing concern over safety regarding bloomberg movement, riots, looting, defunding the police. But times have since changed. Social media has allowed for more unfiltered to reach the public, form educated opinions about social issues in america from person who person rather than a news source. In comparison to the 1988 election, the bush advertisement which brought up shocking new information about dukakis, trumps advertisement didnt really bring up anything new about joe biden, which is especially important when youre trying to make an advertisement that is against the opposing candidate. Public opinion on social issues are different right now. We really are focusing america is really focusing on the black lives Matter Movement because its really important to stop the unjust killing of black people by cops. Also, political advertisements today are knowingly the largest factor in influencing a persons vote. Really its the small tidbits of information we pick up during social media and maybe occasionally on the news. So really his advertisement wasnt successful in changing the viewers opinion about which candidate they are going to vote for. All right. So lets give a hand to group number three. [ applause ] so how many of you after watching all these ads are uncomfortable . Me, too. And they are negative, right . So there are some limitations to these ads. But why should we study these ads . Why is it important to see them and try to understand the ads . Because it might try to manipulate viewers and good to be able to come from an objective perspective, maybe break it down in a way other people might consider and not let it take advantage of you or manipulate you. Yeah. These are forms of the the advertisements can be seen as forms of propaganda. One side highly edited clips. We saw that in both sides. Both sides coming at this in that way where media can be used. I think group number three did such a great job with the social media aspect of it. Memes we talked about and other things are spreading. We dont know necessarily where its coming from, so were going to break down the pacs and super pacs as well because you brought those up. They are uncomfortable. I was watching them, too. They are. This has been going on, the history of these ads go back. Its not just this election cycle. You all are first time voters, all tuning in for the first time. To know this has a history going back to the 50s as dr. Pethel said is important to understand. They may not the limits of the negative ads may not change or affect partisan attitudes, may not reach the target audience, we talked a little bit about that, but they can be too below the belt, too nasty. Thats something we could see that could turn voters out. Do you think that has anything to do with voter turnout . You think so . You guys are nodding a lot. You think people are just like explain. Who wants to talk about that a little. People see the too below the belt ads as too messy. They are like, i dont want to get in on this anymore. These politics seem a little too personal for me as a person to go vote out on it. Yeah. But why should we vote . Why should we kind of ignore that uncomfortable part of it . I think its part of i think its a lot of theres a mix of the structures that are in place that are really oppressing so many peoples voices. When we do have access to the polls, we should be able to use that in the best way we can. A lot of those structures arent just systemic, they are also the narratives that we use and candidates presented. Its that feeling of when you have your right to vote, its the feeling of why should i. Thats part of the tactics being used to silence people. I think fighting against that is incredibly important. Gabby, you had your hand up, too. Why should we go out and vote, even if we feel a little disheartened after seeing things. I was going to say at this point if we are talking about having a democracy and wanting a democracy so bad, part of having a democracy is making your voice heard. Right now the only way to do that is to vote. Im not sitting on the senate floor right now, i dont have that say. So my say is who i vote for to be that voice for me. Yeah. Those are really good points. Anyone else on going out to vote . I mentioned at the beginning of class the lines can be long. Early voting is starting. It just started this week for us. I think thats encouraging no matter what side youre on. Im neutral, nonpartisan, but its encouraging to know people are using that voice despite the mudslinging, despite the negativity, people are coming out, and thats why we vote. So back to the ads, the limits, like we said, could be too below the belt, could not really change the partisan but also rally that base, mobilize that base. People remember those negative ads. They can have a big influence. Some get more press attention. Some are turned into memes, they go viral. Those are ways these ads are used. In terms of how to correct the misconceptions, one way is to flood the zone. How many of you played sports . Flood the zone. So right, you just basically use more speech to combat the speech. If you ignore the attacks, sometimes that increases the credibility of the attacks. So ignoring it is not necessarily the answer. It just depends on the case. Sometimes that can be a good one. Fact checking. I always encouraging Fact Checking. Fact checking, which well go over in a minute, how you can fact check as consumers of these ads. Its usually very good. Fact checking is good. If the news media is using it on an ad that maybe no one had seen before, right, youre amplifying it maybe to the point it wouldnt have been seen so much. Now that youre talking about it, its going to get out there more. Thats the only downside of bringing something up and trying to fact check it. You have to see if it has that reach. One of the things it does is shows us counts, maybe who is watching this and why the record needs to be corrected. But that is just one thing in media. Here is some Fact Checking sites that if youve taken a class with me before youve seen this. These are things you can use, and i encourage you to use. We talked about media, news media. We trust reliable sources. We trust journalists. We can go to New York Times code of ethics, their page and see all their standards and ethics and we can trust that they are abiding by those ethics. There are procedures in place, editors. In every network i worked at, it was the same way. There are sources you can trust. One of the sources is associated press. They have a fact check we talked about. Politifact. Org. Factcheck. Org, snopes. Com can sometimes help with these ads and other things youre seeing you want clarity on. That last point is really important, reliable and trusted journalists that abide by journalism code of ethics. We know the difference between a tabloid and Real News Organization that abides by the codes of ethics. So thats just something to keep in mind as youre looking at these ads, as youre navigating these waters in the campaign season, because it can be very confusing, right . Lets get to social media. This is advertising and the social dilemma. What has happened as you can see up here, what has happened the past week thats made past few weeks that made a lot of headlines with facebook . They are stopping posting political ads on the election day. Yeah. So why would they do that after the election . What have we talked about with mailin ballots, absentee ballots . If the election is close, we might not have the result right away. What they are doing is stopping the advertisements now. Twitter also said they are going to block from either campaign they try to falsely claim the claim that they won. So social media is stepping in and trying to combat this now. Does anyone know in 2016 what happened with advertisements on social media . How did it affect . Remember the Cambridge Analytica . Thats something you all can look into. Thats something that is stemming from this. Now they are doing it. A lot of people are saying why arent they banning them now because they are very influential. Well get into that as well. These are just some of the headlines for the past week where facebook is going to boycott these after the election. So we want to get into pacs. They are easy to break down in the sense of the way we put it here. In your book they do a good job. In 2016 approximately 2. 83 billion billion with a b was spent on tv political advertising for different elections. So relying on news and social media, that was free advertising, President Trump spent less than clinton in 2016. So how did that work to his advantage . What were they playing so he didnt have to use advertisements as much. They used all of his news clips, anything he said to the press. He used them as free advertisement. So a rally would be taken live. Clinton was not doing as much, so it was not taken live. There was a lot of criticism on the news media and if there was equal coverage. Thats something thats really been talked about as well. This turn, its very hard to make a comparison to 2016 because of the pandemic, but we do see a lot of rallies happening. Were having two town halls tonight debate, debate on our campus. But the big thing i want to get into here is advertising dollar, pacs and super pacs. Super pacs can raise as much money as they want from unions, associations, and use it for their political candidates. That is different than a regular pac. So super pacs are prohibited from donating money directly to political candidates. As of october 7, 2020, 2,150 groups organized as super pacs have reported total receipts of 1. 4 billion again with a b and total independent expenditures of more than 1 billion in the 2020 cycle. So this is what super pacs can make all of this money as outside groups an fund these ads. You saw one of those ads was not it said not endorsed i endorse this message by the candidate. Thats a pac. But a super pac is an outside group that can get a lot of this going. So imagine the negative ads that are out there right now due to the super pac. So that brings us to the conclusion, really, of our lecture. Weve just got a couple more slides. Except 435, why am i on here. Its something about me. Every time i Start Talking, there as dog barking. All right. So great conversation about the super pacs because thats something that well talk about more in the coming weeks, how the financial structure of the election has changed. So as professor duck mentioned, super pacs have taken this to a whole other level. You didnt have super pacs or regular pacs in the 1950s and 1906s. So i wanted to show you a little bit of the difference here with 1960 about 20 million was spent total. Now, again, this is not accounting for inflation. But 1980 its up to 107 million. 2000, 306 million. Then the court case thats really going to change everything, and that is Citizens United versus fec in 2010 which reversed a century old finance restriction and enabled corporations through super pacs, as long as they are not directly coordinating with the campaign, to raise unlimited amounts of money, which is going to give corporations essentially a voice in politics and special interests. So they are able to spend unlimited funds, and this decision is going to complicate campaign finance, raise a lot of concerns about transparency. Theres still a lot of controversy about this court case. So you want to know what the total is campaigns and super pac piling in right now for this next election, 10. 8 billion. So we went from a few million to 10. 8 is expected to be spent in the 2020 campaign, smashing records as of october 1sth 2020. And so in the end, and this is the the last slide here and end of our lecture. We want to thank all of you for your participation and for your willingness to answer questions and to present. We want to thank cspan and professor duck and i have really enjoyed this experience. But to wrap up this presentation, we said that in the end president ial elections are about persuasion. And persuasion is not equivalent to truth. So remember that as we go forth. We have one more thing to give you. We do we do want to give you truth, you will each listen, not just one or two of you, but this time we really are oprah with the constitution. Were going to make it rain. So you get a constitution, you get a constitution everybody gets a cspan constitution. Come get it as you walk out the door. Have a great day. Watch the debate. Vote. See ya. P every saturday 8 00 p eastern eastern on american hi r oon cspan3, go insi differep different classroo abor abop aboabout to revolutiorevolution, civil rig president s to 9 11. P than thanks for you fr ffor logging into cl p wi with most fr ffor logging into cl p wi with mos college clospclosed due to the impa coronavirus, watch virtual setting to engage with students. Gorbachev did most of the work to change the soviet union but reagan met him halfway, reagan encouraged him, reagan supported him. It is freedom to print and publish, not freedom to what we refer to institutionally as the press. Lectures in history on American History tv on cspan tv every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Lectures in history is available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. Weeknights this month, were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight university of Mary Washington Professor William crawley discusses the life and legacy of president Thomas Jefferson paying particular attention to his words and actions on issues of slavery and race. This talk from universitys great lives lecture series. Thats 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan3. On lectures in history, university of utah Political Science Professor James curry teaches a class about the creation of Electoral College and explain how it works as part of the process. Professor curry taught the class prior to the Vice President ial debate which took place october 7th at the university of utah. All right. In that case im going to share my screen and were going to Start Talking about the Electoral College, everybodys favorite thing. Okay. So today were going to start our week of talking specifically about the Electoral College, what it is, how it works, why its important, why geo