Trump’s Willie Horton now with transphobia ad campaign

Paul alluded to this earlier today, but if you’ve watched any postseason baseball, you’ve have seen way too much of these revolting ads:

With just four weeks until the election, Donald J. Trump and Republican candidates nationwide are putting transgender issues at the center of their campaigns, tapping into fears about transgender women and girls in sports and about taxpayer-funded gender transitions in prisons.

Since the beginning of August, Republicans have poured more than $65 million into television ads in more than a dozen states on these topics in some of the country’s most competitive races, according to a New York Times analysis of advertising data compiled by AdImpact.

The flood of ads in races for the House, Senate and White House inflame cultural divisions and cast Democrats as outside the mainstream. They are a sign that Republican strategists believe they have found a potent third leg for their messaging stool in 2024, along with the mainstays of inflation and immigration.

Republicans are returning to a message that was tried, mostly unsuccessfully, in the 2022 midterms, as they attempt to motivate their base and curb their losses with female voters repelled by the party’s stance on abortion.

Mr. Trump’s most aired ad about Vice President Kamala Harris in recent weeks ends with the tagline: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

I wasn’t surprised to see tons of these watching Phillies/Mets, but even in a football game involving teams from Washington and New York/Jersey these ads aired multiple times.

I try hard to avoid pundit’s fallacies, and just because I find ads file doesn’t mean they aren’t effective. But to be a little optimitic:

• As the article notes, transphobia has generally not been a winning issue for Republicans in competitive elections.
• One suspects that this choice has more to do with Elon Musk’s personal obsessions than the result of careful data analysis.

But either way I really can’t wait for the year between now and November 5 to end.