Pundits have it all wrong. Yes, Donald Trump’s campaign has lowered the bar again but what we’re really seeing is our political and media culture being turned into one big, spectacular version of the dance the “limbo.” The dance originated in Trinidad and in its most popular universal incarnation a bar is lowered and dancers have to try to go under it without falling or touching it. All we need now is Chubby Checker. And so it goes with Trump. The latest controversy surrounding the controversy-craving and controversy-benefiting Trump would be a scandal if it was another candidate — but each time Trump lowers the political limbo bar, the political culture and America’s news media note it and then leave the bar lowered. Until next time. When it’s lowered down some more.
The latest: in his highly touted first official political ad, it turns out that the Mexican border being depicted really wasn’t the Mexico-U.S. border at all…but Morocco:
Republican presidential Donald Trump‘s newest ad purports to show thousands of illegal immigrants streaming across the Mexican border. But evidence has emerged proving the event in the ad actually took place an entire ocean away.
Fact-checking website Politifact wasted no time in examining the first television ad from their 2015 Lie of the Year winner. They found that video can be traced back to footage obtained by Italian channel RepubblicaTV, and depicted thousands of Morrocans trying to enter the Spanish enclave of Melilla in 2014.
Republican presidential Donald Trump‘s newest ad purports to show thousands of illegal immigrants streaming across the Mexican border. But evidence has emerged proving the event in the ad actually took place an entire ocean away.
Fact-checking website Politifact wasted no time in examining the first television ad from their 2015 Lie of the Year winner. They found that video can be traced back to footage obtained by Italian channel RepubblicaTV, and depicted thousands of Morrocans trying to enter the Spanish enclave of Melilla in 2014.
However, the Trump ad presented the Morocco footage as the Mexican border. “He’ll stop illegal immigration by building a wall on our southern border that Mexico will pay for,” the narration claims, while the caption reads “STOP ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.”
It’s possible that the inclusion of misleading footage was accidental. But oddly enough, the RepubblicaTV logo and time codes were both cropped out for the ad.
Politifact awarded Trump a “Pants on Fire” for the ad, their lowest possible rating. But the Trump campaign addressed the discrepancy in a, uh, unique statement to NBC.
Here’s NBC’s tidbit on the reaction:
Asked about the video, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told NBC News, “No sh– it’s not the Mexican border but that’s what our country is going to look like. This was 1,000 percent on purpose.”
Lewandowski later emailed a statement that said, “The use of this footage was intentional and selected to demonstrate the severe impact of an open border and the very real threat American’s face if we do not immediately build a wall and stop illegal immigration. The biased mainstream media doesn’t understand, but Americans who want to protect their jobs and their families do.”
If you believe this (let’s call it this) then I have this company that I can sell you right now for $150 and a Slurpee.
This is yet another demonstration of the sorry state of American politics– and media reporting — as we head further into the 21st century. Facts mean absolutely nothing. It’s repeating an assertion over and over and then (by today’s standards) it becomes a fact. The media reports it, the reaction to it, and then lets it stand. There really is little accountability or consequences, except for a brief period in a news cycle or two. And people who support a given tribe member political candidate will give them a pass or act as defense lawyers to reporters who ask or in comments sections online.
If the Trump campaign had meant for that to be an example they would have disclosed it when the ad out, or even disclosed it in the ad — which actually could have made the ad more effective.
Think about it: in appealing to the demographic Trump is courting — people who fear or resent illegal immigrants — the ad could have noted that this was a border in Europe and asked GOP voters if they wanted this to happen to America. The ad would have been more effective and could have resonated on several levels.
Instead, a website just happened to discover the little factoid that the footage wasn’t really what’s going on at the Mexican border. And just happened to disclose it before the Trump campaign disclosed it. And if you’re convinced it would have been disclosed then let me tell you about THIS visiting your house . And since in our politics a candidate or spokesperson moving their lips and saying something — anything — means it’s likely to then be accepted as a legitimate answer, it’s time to move on and accept whatever was given energetically as an explanation. And don’t forget we’re now are in the “no sh–” era when there isn’t even an effort to try and respond with an answer untainted by emotion or a lack of grace.
On so many occasions the media and some politicians have seemed surprised or shocked by Trump’s comments. But life goes on after the controversy, there are no consequences and he sets the new tone.
So using totally misleading footage in campaign ads and saying why it was on purpose not to disclose what it wasn’t and was is now where we are. The bar has been lowered again.
And there it will stay as the new normal.
Until it is lowered again.
Inexorably lowered again.
Top photo by Mariegriffiths at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.