this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2024
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[โ€“] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The truth was never part of the issue. They often had contradictory messaging depending on the audience.

  • Kamala betrayed Israel because she's sympathetic to Palestinian terrorists / Kamala loves genocide
  • Kamala's a communist / all the Democrats are corrupt and in bed with the corporations
  • Kamala is for open borders and evil immigrants / Kamala is crueler than Trump on immigration

Most of it was actually engineered for Biden and based on what he did in office, to the extent that it was even based on anything, and then they just did a search-and-replace to change it to Kamala. It makes no sense, but the effectiveness is not really based on it making sense, just on insistent constant repetition and on it lining up with the reader's general vulnerabilities in terms of what tends to resonate with them. Lemmy gets the second half of each of my examples, but the first half also got plenty of play and had plenty of effectiveness with other audiences.

[โ€“] paultimate14@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

I did see recently some ads from right-wing PAC's that were shown in different swing states- some portraying Harris as an enemy of Israel in predominantly Jewish areas (I know Judaism =/= Zionism but if you were trying to direct ads to Zionists that's probably the closest you can get) and others portraying Harris as a genocidal supporter of Israel in areas with higher Palestinian populations.

Something that always surprises me is just how effective such dumb advertising is to the average person. I'm not even claiming to be some superhuman immune to propaganda, but political ads always seem particularly low-effort yet seem to control the outcomes of elections.