Kevin McCarthy claims no one is questioning the legitimacy of the election

Republicans Already Deliberately Deceiving Viewers in First 2022 Ad: CNN-WaPo Fact Check Nails the GOP

Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:42 pm

When one’s platform is – literally – based on the whims of one man with no principles at all, beyond self-promotion, “messaging” can be a bit of a problem. There are not a lot of things to which MAGAs can point and say, “It was better under Trump!”

So, it appears, MAGA Republicans are avoiding that problem altogether by mixing things that occurred under Trump with those that have occurred under Biden, leaving the viewer with the impression that Biden is within days of running the country into the ground. The ads are untrustworthy, four Pinocchios,

According to CNN:

The 30-second ad from the National Republican Congressional Committee, titled “Chaos,” begins with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicting “bold progress for the people when we have President Joe Biden in the White House.” It then contrasts Pelosi’s words with a rapid-fire series of photos and videos depicting scenes of violence and tumult in the US and abroad.

Parts of that speedy montage, though, are highly misleading. 

Many of us would have been utterly stunned if the first big 2022 ad was rated entirely trustworthy and truthful. Stunned.

At least three of the images in the Republican ad were actually taken in 2020, during the Trump administration, not during the Biden administration in 2021. 

Does it have a tinge of racism to go with the lies? Yes, it does, indicative of the fact that the MAGAs intend to run on what worked whenever it worked:

At the 17-second mark, the ad shows flames rising around an elevated sign that reads “BLACK LIVES MATTER.” As Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel pointed out on Monday, this image is from Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020, during the unrest that followed the police shooting of Jacob Blake. (The sign belonged to a Unitarian Universalist church.)

Were the Republicans embarrassed? Did they fire a few interns and issue an apology? Pfft:

Berg was unapologetic about the ad’s use of images from 2020. In Twitter messages to CNN, he defended the ad by claiming that Democrats “actively supported and encouraged the riots in 2020” and that Biden in particular “actively encouraged the protests.”

But again, this is the inevitable result of a party that doesn’t stand for anything but itself and its belief that it should be ruling the nation. The only policies the GOP support are tax cuts and regulatory cuts, things that cost the rich money and take from the poor or the commons.

They cannot point to programs they want to implement. They don’t have any. They cannot point to great successes (they act like COVID was some kind of accident and nothing could have mitigated it),. Even the stock market, something to which Trump always pointed, is setting highs under Biden. Everything to which Trump might point, inflation, supply issues, can all be traced back to shipping problems rooted in COVID concerns that are increasing prices.. The Republicans leave out that Americans with children have at least an extra $250 a month to deal with those prices… thanks to Democrats.

Meanwhile, the United States is about to Build Back Better, spending a lot of money to do it

Democrats are not above low-ball tactics. They happen. But Democrats do not normally outright lie about something because – at least for the last five years – there has literally been nothing to be gained by lying. The facts have backed up the Democrats for some time now.

Perhaps the Republicans are only starting to notice now that they have to come up with some kind of 2022 message.

Jason Miciak

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