By:Connor Lo
Political Advertising
Before the invention of the television, presidential candidates gained the support of the populace by going out and meeting the communities in America. There were lots of town-hall debates and meetings with the locals. However, with the invention of the TV in 1927 and the first TV ad in 1941, political ads changed from involved meet-and-greets to filmed and aired ads. The first person who took advantage of this was Dwight D. Eisenhower as a candidate who was filmed answering questions asked by locals.
"Eisenhower answers America"
The slogan "Eisenhower answers America" created a connection between the needs of 1950s America and him, with Eisenhower as the answer. In the first ad, Eisenhower used the plain folks persuasive technique by mentioning his humble beginnings. Shortly after, during the interview, Eisenhower said that we are not ready for war based on the fact that we don't have enough tanks. This was a black-and-white logical fallacy. Although we might not have enough tanks, that did not mean that we were not ready in other ways.
Overall, the most prominent persuasive technique used is plain folks. In almost all the ads, he talks about the problems that Americans are facing as if he feels the same way. This makes the people think that he understands their problems and will work to solve them.
In this video, we see a short section of the third presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The biggest logical fallacy in this debate was ad hominem. Almost the whole debate was them throwing insults at each other and each other's values while both having no sufficient evidence to back up their claims. Other logical fallacies included straw-man, slippery slope, hasty generalization, causal fallacy, and red herring. These types of debates are full of logical fallacies.
In this political ad, Dr. Kim Schrier is running for office as a representative for the 8th district. The first persuasive technique I saw was card stacking. She pointed out Congressman Reichert's supposedly "bad" voting decisions. She pointed out the negatives of his choices but not the positives. In the next scene, she talks about how she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and how it motivated her to become a pediatrician. The camera scenes showed her taking care of children who look happy. This manipulated the audiences emotions to make it look like she cared for her patients.
Next, there was a scene of Donald Trump from the 2016 presidential elections. However, the coloring in the video faded to black and white. This visual effect was used to make the audience feel as if Donald Trump is void of feeling and that there was no hope. We then saw more card stacking as she pointed out all of congressman Reichert's mistakes. In the end, we saw an example of plain folks appeal when she talked about her family. When she said how she is a mom and cares for her family, she attempted to create a connection between herself and other moms. Schrier hoped that making her life more relatable will help gain her supporters.
Conclusion
Political ads have, by far, the most logical fallacies. In attack ads such as the ones shown above, they usually attack their opponents credibility. In debates, we see a lot of ad hominem. Instead of attacking their argument, they attack each others personalities and values. In campaign ads, editors manipulate camera angles and coloring to create a different effect and generate a certain mood from the audience. They also speak their vision in an attempt to connect with the audience.
This is and attack ad on Kim Schrier and her cause. The ad started out by stating that Kim Schrier's practice refused healthcare to children with medicaid. This is accompanied by pictures of melancholy children with muted colors. The purpose of this was to make the audience feel pity or empathy for the kids. This was followed with an unflattering picture and audio of Kim Schrier "admitting" to restricting the number of patients. However, the truth is that Schrier did not have her own practice and worked for Virginia Mason.
In addition, deciding what insurance plan to accept was a corporate decision and could not be controlled by the doctors. Due to the lack of context, we saw an example of the straw-man fallacy. She may have said these things, but her reasoning was not stated. Her words were used out of context. In the ending statement, they said "Kim Schrier profits while kids suffer". This is an example of weasel words. The phrase was used to make the audience feel disdain towards Kim Schrier.