I Just Love Xenophobic Campaign Commercials!
Last night I finally caught the latest Santorum campaign commercial while watching a Law and Order rerun on TNT. WTF? The whole ad just plays into the xenophobia of so many of his supporters, but it really just made me want to kick him in the teeth. I wasn’t sure if I should laugh hysterically or violently throw up, especially the part near the end when he said “Most of all, it will help make us less dependent on… them” while pointing to TV screens showing images of people rioting and burning American flags. You can watch the ad on his website (it’s the one called Greenland).
You don’t understand what “xenophobia” means, do you?
It’s a fear of strangers, more specifically a fear or extreme dislike of foreign people. Currently in the US there are a lot of people who hold this attitude towards those of Arabic descent, regardless of political or religious beliefs. The recent ad from Santorum feeds this fear.
Which has nothing to do with Santorum’s ad.
No, currently in the US there are a lot of people with no moral compass who don’t see the difference between Arabs and terrorists. Those people would be liberals. Progressives. CAIR supporters.
Like you.
Santorum’s ad, for those who are not morally impaired, targets terrorists. The fact that you can’t differentiate does not make it xenophobic. It merely makes you amoral.
I agree with you that there are people in the US who cannot or will not make a distinction between Arabs and terrorists. However, this label shouldn’t apply to liberals alone. Many conservatives also feel this way. To say that it is a liberal problem ignores the real issue: that many Americans, regardless of political or religious belief, have an unrealistic link in their minds that Arab equals terrorist.
That is my main problem with Santorum’s ad: it doesn’t make it clear that not all sources of foreign oil are Arabic, and not all Arabs are terrorists.
Santorum may have done some good by working for funds to support alternative fuel sources, but I disagree with the methods used in this ad to display that. If he had simply spoken of his work on reducing our dependency on foreign oil–all sources, all countries–and finding new energy sources, this commercial wouldn’t be nearly as deplorable.
Here is the simple truth behind this ad, all political leanings aside. Santorum is facing an election in which his seat is seriously threatened. He has been a rather polarizing figure over the last few years. Few voters in Pennsylvania are undecided at this point in time.
Santorum’s people are doing what must be done to give him a chance in November… energizing his base. The outcome of this election hinges solely on which canidate can get the most voters to the polls.
Santorum’s support comes largely from the rural areas of the state. In order to motivate these voters, he must accent the issues that hold the highest priorty to them. In the 2004 election, voters in rural areas overwhelmingly stated that the two most important issues our country faces are terrorism and traditional family values.
The simple truth is, many of the people living in these rural areas have had little to no exposure to other cultures. A great deal of their perception has been shaped by the images shown in the media. Does the media really make an effort to portray Arabic people in a positive light? No… “If it bleeds, it leads.”
Santorum bombards the viewer with this violent imagery in his ad. Like all politicians (liberal and conservative), he is pandering to the voters’ emotions. It’s simply how politics works. The message being conveyed is “Here are the scary, violent, foreigners. I’m here to protect you from them.”
Is the ad outrightly xenophobic? No. It does, however, attempt to exploit the xenophobic feelings that the voters may have. It’s a tecnique as old as politics itself.
Reality check. They are scary. They are trying to kill us.
That. Is. Reality.
All your other nonsense is just that.
I don’t recall saying that terrorists are NOT trying to kill us. You stated that liberals are amoral and cannot differentiate between Arabs and terrorists. The original point being made was quite the opposite… that it seemed as if Santorum was blurring this distinction.
No one has disagreed that terrorists are dangerous, nor has anyone suggested that we should not reduce our dependency on resources from volatile regions of the world. The only point being made was that the ad comes across as xenophobic to some people. You feel otherwise, and that’s fine.
For some reason, you have decided to react as if this is some sort pro-terrorist manifesto of some sort… a manifesto you can only defeat by hurling insults. I suppose that’s pretty much what the political discourse has degraded to in our society. The right wing blames the left, the left wing blames the right, stones are thrown, and everyone loses the ability to find common ground.
It’s rather sad, really. Our nation’s news programming has become little more than a 24 hour episode of the Jerry Springer Show.