The Arizona Cardinals had an away game against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, Sept. 27, so it’s a fair bet most fans watched on TV.
Things got ugly, and that is not a reference to the Cardinals’ 36-30 loss. (That was actually pretty entertaining.)
The big downside of fall football Sundays (and Saturdays) during election years is that as Election Day approaches, the number of political ads increases. It’s as if the candidates and political action committees want you to prove you really want to watch football by punishing you with distorted, mud-slinging ads.
Sunday brought the return of the biggest mud-slinger of them all. And it looked alarmingly familiar.
What was Donald Trump doing on our TVs during the Cardinals' game?
There, on TV screens in Arizona and around the country, appeared an ominous black-and-white
“final battle” commercial, in which a serious-looking Trump strides along, frowning, looking as if he is angry, or he ate bad clams or something. He intones, in a voiceover, that this is the “final battle,” that he will “demolish the deep state,” that he will “cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists,” and “throw off the sick political class that hates our country.”
And, of course, that old standby: “We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all.”
If it sounds familiar, it’s because it’s nearly identical to the ad his 2024 presidential campaign used. (No one bothered to cut the “expel the warmongers from our government” bit, even as the U.S. remains, at Trump’s behest, mired in war with Iran.)
This time there were a couple of differences. One is that Trump isn’t running for anything.
Also, did you enjoy the ad? Because you paid for it. That’s the other difference. At the end we see the words “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”
Yes, Trump is using taxpayer money to promote himself and, one could reasonably argue, to boost Republican candidates in the upcoming midterm elections, in what most polling suggests will be an uphill battle for the party. Or that, if it’s not an out-and-out political ad, it’s at the very least propaganda.
Propaganda that, again, you paid for.
Last week, the White House ran TV ads set to JMSN’s “Love Me,” in which Trump also said, “America will never be a communist country,” among other things.
Federal law prohibits using public money to pay for political ads
Federal law prohibits public money to be used to pay for political advertising. Republicans and Democrats have spoken out against the ads. Not that any of this ever has any effect on Trump.
The White House said in a statement that the ad is “educational and unapologetically patriotic.”
It also maintains a web page defending the ads. “The attacks on President Donald J. Trump’s public service announcements are highly dishonest,” it says. “The announcements are very clearly not campaign ads; President Trump is not on the ballot and there is no call to action. Instead, the announcements are a reminder for Americans to love their country and know why it’s worth defending — at home, at the border, and abroad.”
Come on. How is this not political? It’s essentially the same ad he used to run for president. Trump frequently, and falsely, labels Democrats as communists. During the weird Republican convention held in September, he told supporters, “What I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot.” If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck. …
Whether the ads will help Republicans is another story. Trump’s standing in polls has fallen to abysmal levels, and some Republican candidates seem to be running away from Trump, rather than clamoring for his support as they have in the past. Jay Feely, the former Arizona Cardinals kicker who is running for Congress in Arizona, spoke at the midterm convention that other Republican candidates (including incumbent Rep. Juan Ciscomani, also from Arizona) skipped.
Maybe that’s why another political ad that aired during the Cardinals-49ers game Sunday pounded Feely over Trump’s endorsement. But even Feely has acknowledged that Trump lost the 2020 election, a move unthinkable for a Republican candidate only a year ago. Supporting Trump’s lie that the election was stolen from him was practically a platform plank.
Who is the “final battle” ad really for, then? You know who. All roads lead to Trump. It’s going to be a while until we can enjoy football freely again.
Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Media commentary with a side of snark? Sign up for The Watchlist newsletter with Bill Goodykoontz.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trump crashed the Cardinals' game. And you paid for it | Opinion
