Political Parties Failing Because of Attack Advertisements

Chapter 9 focuses on the concept of political parties. The chapter begins by defining what a political party is, and describes its theoretical and ideal roles that it should play in government. The chapter highlights the two-party system that we have in America, the reasons why it is present, how the minor parties interact with this system, and how the two party system is changing. Chapter 9 closes with the discussion of the modern Democratic and Republican parties that affect the country immensely on a day to day basis. Overall, I think the book did a good job of comprehensively explaining what a political party is and how it functions, or should function, in our country. I would like to focus on the part of the text that presents the theoretical roles of political parties and compare that to the actual effects that the party system has on the government today.

The chapter states that one of the roles that political parties should fulfill, is to stimulate political interest. In fact, it states, “When they are working properly, political parties stimulate interest in politics and public affairs and increase participation (250).” I believe that this statement is correct, and that if political parties were functioning perfectly then this could certainly be a very important and successful outcome that would be very beneficial to the country as a whole, especially the overall success of democracy. However, this is not what has been developing out of political parties, even more so in the recent years. Of course, political parties encourages competition, and this is not a bad thing at all, or at least shouldn’t be. Competition is one of the most important aspects of a democracy and is essential for the prosperity of a democracy, however, the polarization that the two party system has created brings out a very negative kind of competition that has adversely impacted the government of our country. As Steven Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar demonstrated in From Going Negative, this polarization has created the implementation of very negative advertising campaigns from competing candidates where they attack each other on the grounds of things unrelated to policies or actual political concepts. Here is one example of these negative advertisement campaigns that was present in the race for governor here in Virginia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCb-LbaLUvc

This advertisement was funded by the Latino Victory Project and was designed to attack Gillespie by associating him with racism and alluding to the idea that he dislikes minority groups and that him winning the election would impact the entire community of minorities in a very negative way. After the ad came out Gillespie attempted to make it clear that this was no where near the truth. Either way, it doesn’t really matter if it is true or not for the purpose of this post. The fact that this type of smear and attack ad aired in the first place takes a blow at politics in general and both of the candidates as well. It makes Gillespie look bad because he is associated with the persecution of minorities (even though that might not be true), and it makes Northam look bad because he is associated with the ad because someone in his party put it together demonstrating that Northam would stoop so low to do things like present that ad. Overall, this impacts politics as a whole because it discourages people’s trust in the candidates, in the election process, and therefore the government as a whole.

In From Going Negative, it says, “Attack advertisements resonate with the popular beliefs that government fails, that elected officials are out of touch and quite corrupt, and that voting is a hollow act. The end result: lower turnout and lower trust in government, regardless of which party rules (493).” This is spot on. All of the negative advertising accomplishes exactly those things, it certainly discourages people from voting. Therefore, to conclude, the political parties are not succeeding in promoting democracy and our government is not working in this way because of the polarization and competition between the political parties causing voting turnout to decline.

9 Responses to "Political Parties Failing Because of Attack Advertisements"

Helen Spiller says:

December 3, 2017 at 11:14 pm

I think you make an interesting point about the party separation and the going negative ads. I think this relates well to Alex Friedman’s post regarding Independence and their rise in young people. I think it’s important to recognize these going negative ads and their effects on political parties. As we can see, less and less people are voting with less than 50% turnout last election ad around 40% being independents. The American people are expressing that they feel less and less of a voice in government and are feeling more polarized by the parties. I think both these elements are certainly attributed to the extremely negative and polarizing parties we see today. I think perhaps the parties need to reevaluate or a new party needs to attempt to come to be to represent these masses of people that feel so strongly against either party that they either don’t vote or register as neither. The current system is polarizing and detrimental to a representative economy.
Lilly Alemayehu says:

December 4, 2017 at 12:02 am

I agree that attack advertisements can be very polarizing and combative. This reminds me of the way that elections are displayed in news media. Elections are so competitive and sports-like, that news media generally portrays the counting of votes as a race or a football game. This makes the process more entertaining for viewers and this viewership is a group of polarized individuals by the two-party system. These ads are used as propaganda in order to send a very direct message to a largely uneducated group of votes. Many people don’t see the inherent bias in these videos and therefore there voting correlates with the content of these commercials, which is very concerning. Polarization of media, as well as propaganda videos, create a more widely divided public. Also, the creation of this sports-like coverage makes people chose a side and stick with it.
Montgomery Thornburn says:

December 4, 2017 at 9:58 pm

When I read this chapter I immediately thought back to the article “Going Negative” too. Political parties have so much potential to do good and make our democracy better. Unfortunately, recent elections have shown us that the two main political parties in the United States have continued to grow farther and farther apart in terms of ideology, and this is reflected in society as a whole. It is important for our government officials to be seen working together rather than labeling each other as the problem increasing tensions between groups. It is no surprise that this era of political parties is defined by “Parties at War” and the growing divide in politics is more clear than ever. I think that attack advertising is most definitely a part of the problem but it also comes from something bigger than that. There seems to be a growing lack of mutual respect for politicians and even more sentiment that members of other political parties are the problem and are not looking for the best interests of the nation. I believe that most people who run for office do want to help the people and the nation no matter what party they represent. During the 2008 election, we saw John McCain defend Barrack Obama and say “I will respect him. I want everyone to be respectful, and let’s make sure we are. Because that’s the way politics should be conducted in America.”. This type of rhetoric is what we need more of if we are going to heal the wounds that have been left to fester in recent times and as citizens and voters, we must demand the best from our politicians so they can serve all Americans and not just those who elected them.
Austin Liptrot says:

December 4, 2017 at 10:32 pm

I think you bring up some strong points in your blog post. I think that there is an inherent danger in the path of political advertisements and its encouragement of polarization. I maintain that I dislike negative ads, personally finding them a frustrating sign of infotainment. However, I cede that they must be an effective strategy in modern elections, and perhaps a necessary evil. If these advertisements didn’t hurt their targets they wouldn’t be used. Consciously or unconsciously one is more likely to associate Ed Gillespie with racist tones after watching that commercial regardless of factual evidence. If these ads work, then they most likely will be here to stay. It is important then to try to neutralize the unfortunate distrust of government that tags along with the commercials. We should seek to remedy the lower turnout rates while abiding with these negative ads.
Yanbin Zhang says:

December 5, 2017 at 1:30 am

Negative ads in a political campaign is really often to see in all levels of election. It’s really a good point stated in the blog that the negative ads firstly originated from a good point which both parties want to compete with each other to promote a better administration for the whole country. That initiative incentive is actually good for the political election and the country. But as it turned to negative ads, it departed away from politics itself. Apparently, negative ads tend to be more memorable than positive ones. So it becomes a leverage in the campaign to win more vote for one party. But as released by a study, the negative ads actually do not affect voters’ choice. Specifically, negative ads aired early in the campaign can have a different effect than negative ads aired at later points. Whereas early ads can mobilize voters by making them more confident in their candidate choices or making the middle voters close to the other candidate, ads aired later actually decrease confidence and turn people away from the polls. In this way, the negative ads could generally reduce the turnout in a single election. And that is just opposite to the original duty of political party —– to stimulate more participation of the public into politics and election. Therefore, negative ads and attack should not be accepted in an fair and efficient election promoting the democracy.
Jackson Puckey says:

December 5, 2017 at 3:51 pm

The vast majority of Americans have a strong disdain for negative campaign ads, and for good reason. They rarely present a genuine contrast between the candidates and, generally, have a somewhat shaky relationship with the truth of matters. Despite this, the vast majority of campaigns still use them as a key component of their multimedia strategy. In the past few cycles, most of these negative ads have come from super PACs and other, non-campaign organizations. However, the ads released by the Trump and Clinton campaigns were overwhelmingly negative, showing that this trend can easily be broken. These ads can range from the mythical contrast ad, in which the candidates are compared and one is shown as more qualified, to attacks and exaggerations of positions, to even attacks on a person’s character and personal accomplishments. The last of these have become significantly more common as our discourse has become more and more polarized. One of the main reasons that these ads persist is that they energize the base. While independent voters can and must be swayed by a wide variety of things, such as speeches, positive ads, and simple word of mouth, a candidate must also convince their base to vote for them. While there is generally no risk of a democratic socialist voting for Trump or an evangelical conservative voting for Clinton, there is a risk that the political bases of a party will not feel energized enough to actually come out on election day and mark their preference. One of the reasons for Secretary Clinton’s defeat in 2016 was that the Obama Coalition, a cohort of working class and minority voters, failed to show up to the polls in expected volumes in key states. While there were some instances of the Obama/Trump voter, the myth of the angry white working class as a reason for her defeat pales in comparison to simple voter apathy. This is why negative ads are run. They motivate those comfortably within the right and left of their respective parties to come to the polls, rather than guiding those who have yet to make up their minds.
Esteban Lara says:

December 5, 2017 at 7:48 pm

It seems like the real problem with voter turnout is not the political parties themselves, but rather the advertisements that they fund. Political parties are still important in the process of representing different ideologies and points of view that various citizens might have, but I agree with you that advertisements are tainting the opinions and emotionally influencing people into having certain opinions about opposing parties (especially with less educated people). Perhaps a possible solution would be to regulate the type or amount of propaganda that political parties are able to fund.
Marcin Jerzewski says:

December 6, 2017 at 11:11 am

I think that your blog post discusses a very important issue in contemporary American politics – the sustained rise in use of negative ads in political campaigns. While certainly not exclusive to U.S. politics, I believe that negative ads are much more widespread and constitute a considerably more important issue in America than in most European countries. Actually, in Poland, “U.S.-style” negative ads are prohibited by the Broadcasting Act of December 29th, 1992. Negative campaign advertising has been a subject of academic discussion, and I think it is interesting to observe that while Ansolabehere and Iyengar have concluded that demobilizes and alienates the electorate, other scholars disagree. For instance, in his 1999 article “Negative Campaign Advertising: Demobilizer or Mobilizer?” Martin P. Wattenberg found that survey data directly contradicted their findings, yielding no evidence of a turnout disadvantage for those who recollected negative presidential campaign advertising. He actually found evidence that negative ads can mobilize so called “peripheral” voters, who would otherwise stay at home on the election day. The infamous “Daisy Girl” commercial (“Vote for President Johnson on November 3d: The stakes are too high for you to stay home.”) serves here as a case in point. Perhaps this incongruence in findings of research projects pertaining to negative advertising deters campaign managers from abolishing this form of promotion.

And there is another issue I would like to discuss with reference to your blog post. As a matter of fact, the LVF ad you refer to was neither produced nor paid for by Ralph Northam’s campaign. Therefore, I do not find it accurate to argue that “Northam would stoop so low to do things like present that ad.” I think it is important to emphasize this, as the model of financing political campaigns in the Commonwealth of Virginia makes the discussion of the impact of negative ads more complex. As Fenit Nirappil of the Washington Post reminds us, “Virginia does not limit campaign donations and allows outside groups to coordinate directly with campaigns — allowing for money to gush into competitive contests” (https://goo.gl/euSPCv). As seen in the very last segment of the LVF ad, it has not been authorized or endorsed by any particular candidate. The politics of the United States are characterized by a constant competition of two political parties, so it is logical to infer that any opposition to Ed Gillespie translated into support for Ralph Northam. However, I do not think that we can always hold individual campaigns accountable for agitation efforts of independent groups, if it is permissible for them to run political ads they are solely responsible for.
Kevin Todd says:

December 6, 2017 at 8:08 pm

I thought your argument in this blog post was very fascinating. I think the ad you included was important in enhancing your argument how political parties are stooping lower and lower each election to make them seem a whole lot greater than the other. I think ads like these are very effective in swaying those who are not politically active or have little to no political knowledge. These people who see these ads are easily convinced since they are sponsored by an official organization of some sort. This makes it seem like there is a more authentic view coming across and that it must be true even if it is a complete lie. I think the competition is becoming so fierce between parties that it is dangerous because often times not many people know who to trust due to the two parties constantly digging up dirt on their opponents. This past election showed how majority of our nation was confused and not sure who to vote for simply based on who the candidates were and what they represented. It certainly did not make it any easier with the negative attacks the political parties and candidates posed on one another. I understand that being able to accuse a person of something is legal due to the freedom of speech but I think it makes it extremely tough for the public when voting time comes because they are questioning who is the actual best candidate based on all of the negative accusations. In this past election for example many people thought both candidates were poor representatives where the public assumed they would both be bad in office so they voted for those who they thought would be less bad instead of who would be the best fit.

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