Liberal PAC NextGen America released an anti-GOP ad last week just in time for Mother’s Day. The ad, titled “Mother’s Day,” shows a distraught mother lamenting the loss of her son to Republicanism.
She talks about the early signs of Republicanism, and the video flashes to a clip of the son beating up a poor child in the hallway at school. She talks about his trouble with girls, and the video shows him screaming at a woman outside an abortion clinic. And then, the mother explains meeting his college friends, while holding up a picture of a white supremacist rally.
In case the message is unclear, the son is shown repeatedly wearing a Trump campaign shirt. It’s a harsh story, especially for Mother’s Day.
On a holiday about love, NextGen’s ad sends a hateful message. It’s not just that Republicans are all racist, sexist Nazis – it’s that if your kid turns out to be a Republican, you’ve failed as a mother.
NextGen picked a white man to play the evil young Republican, of course. White men are the only demographic that liberals will openly disparage. White men are cast as oppressors. Democrats lost the 2016 election because working-class white people were tired of being either ignored or cast as villains, while their wages stagnated and drugs took over their communities. This faux-medical TV spot shows that the Democrats have learned nothing.
As the video closes, a voiceover plays: “Only a mother can catch the signs…This Mother’s Day, talk to your child about the GOP.” If Liberals want to call conservatism a mental illness, they ought not to stigmatize it. The whole theme of the ad is wrong: Look, here’s a fool with a disease. Everybody point and laugh with us.
What is this ad supposed to prove? The joke only works for viewers who begin with the assumption that Republicanism is a disease. To independents, it looks spiteful. And to parents of Republicans, it says they’ve raised monsters. The ad disparages Republicans themselves, and that’s the whole point: NextGen America hates young Republicans and wants you to know it. This message will not win over a single voter to their side.
Trump might have eroded civility in public life, but it would be foolish to pretend the public can turn to Democrats for moral leadership. If Trump is as awful as Democrats say, then it would be easy for them to look like the party of thoughtfulness in comparison. Instead, the left makes low-blow jokes about Republicans and their mothers on Mother’s Day! They’re lowering the bar instead of raising it. (Remember when Michelle Obama said “when they go low, we go high”? I don’t think liberals listened.)
NextGen America is funded by Tom Steyer, a hedge fund billionaire from California. By lumping in all young Republicans with the torch-bearing glue sniffers, the PAC proves it’s out of touch.
Angela Morabito (@AngelaLMorabito) writes about politics, media, ethics, and culture. She holds both a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Georgetown University.
