The Republican ads are using all of the old canards designed to frighten us. What they are doing is not new. It is simply a repeat of dirty politics that knowingly spreads falsehoods and innuendo to make us wary of people in our nation who think differently than we do. It seems that for the midterms every sort of misleading information is on the table being funded by millions from wealthy people who already have way too much power over us. 

This is the season for ranting about religious beliefs and choosing one person’s spirituality over another. This one has been around for a long time. When John Kennedy ran for president the stories about the horrors of Catholicism were rampant. Ads insisted that our nation would ultimately be run by the Pope if Kennedy won. In today’s version of religious propaganda the Republicans are ramping up horror stories about Muslims and even Protestants whose views are more liberal than those of the Christian Nationalists. They are taking comments out of context and insisting that they are extreme. This kind of fear mongering goes way back and has always resulted in innocent people being harmed. 

Another big argument is that the Communists are trying to take over. This one led to giving power to Adolf Hitler in Germany. Later it resulted in witch hunts in Congress that ruined the careers and lives of ordinary Americans who were accused of wanting to turn our nation into a communist hellhole. The truth is that most voters do not appear to know the difference between a social democrat who simply wants the government and our taxes to work for the people rather than the few oligarchs who own most of the wealth in our nation. Wanting citizens to have access the healthcare and decent housing is not communism but the Red Scare tactic seems to always attract voters who have not taken the time to educate themselves with the facts. 

Somehow the MAGA driven Republican party seems to believe that the president should have unlimited power to do anything he wants. They prefer giving billionaires incredible tax breaks while ignoring the many problems of the middle and low income citizens. They look the other way when the president breaks the law or when a man running for the Senate has been accused of theft and other crimes as long as they are in line with the current beliefs of one man and his loyal followers.

Of course the playbook also wants us to be fearful of others who seem to be unlike us, Thus they look away when immigrants are being deported to countries where they have never lived. They argue that these people are all criminals because they did not come here legally. They argue that saving our young girls from trans athletes is more important national security even though none of them has actually been in danger from a trans women. In fact, most have never encountered such person because they represent less than one percent of the entire population. 

Their’s is an ugly platform that is attempting to make it harder for Americans to vote. They speak of freedom of religion when they truly only want one way of thinking about religion. They constantly create boogey men where there are none. They use fear to turn us against each other and to be cruelly judgmental about people that they do not even know. 

We are not yet at the kind of moment that Germany endured under the rule of Adolf Hitler and his henchmen but we would do well to understand that the propaganda being hurled in this elections cycle is very much like the kind that created concentration camps and the killing of innocent people in the long ago. We should all be wary of attempting to carve out a country that is based on an idea that only certain ways of being and thinking is permissible. Never have people been exactly alike and that is as it should be. We are a nation of many ideas, religious beliefs, and ways of living. That is what has made our country strong and resilient. The nasty ads that offer no positive supports for our citizens should alert us that many people running for office are only interested in increasing their own power and forcing their ways of thinking on all of us. 

I hope that the majority of Americans do not allow themselves to become victims of the nasty propaganda being desperately thrown at us simply because Trump and the Republican party fear that they will lose the midterm elections. They have made life more difficult than it needed to be. The economy is in free fall. We are mired in a war that never should have happened. People are losing their jobs. Efforts are being made to turn us on each other. We should not let this stand. Our duty for saving our democracy lies in educating ourselves and looking beyond the frightful ads that are classics of propaganda. Listen instead to what candidates have to positively offer. If the only way someone can win is by spending lies and innuendo we should be wary. When something sounds ugly or divisive take the time to fact check its reliability and its source. Turn the noise around to gain the truth.