Attack Ads: Why They Work—Then and Now

By David Corn  October 22, 2022

A still showing Upton Sinclair from the new documentary The First Attack Ads: Hollywood vs. Upton Sinclair. Courtesy PBS SoCal/KCET

With the midterm elections weeks away, it’s negative ad season. Republicans have been deploying scurrilous attack ads that darken the skin color of Black Democrats running for office, such as Stacey Abrams, the gubernatorial candidate in Georgia, and Mandela Barnes, the Wisconsin lieutenant governor challenging GOP Sen. Ron Johnson. In the Badger State, a Republican super PAC has deployed ads that superimpose Barnes’ name over images of crime scenes. In Utah, a Republican-leaning PAC aired ads that falsely claimed independent Evan McMullin, who is trying to unseat Republican Sen. Mike Lee, called all Republicans racists and bigots. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC, has launched ads against Seth Magaziner, a Democratic congressional candidate in Rhode Island, falsely asserting he supports raising taxes on families making less than $75,000 annually. And Democrats have also mounted a barrage of ads in close races, including some tough ones targeting Herschel Walker, the multi-scandalized GOP Senate candidate in Georgia. (Here’s an example.)

For years, people have asked whether mud-throwing ads work. The answer: basically yes. Perhaps not always. But they can—especially when the targeted candidate is not already well-known to the public. Just ask Michael Dukakis. As a counterpoint, consider some of the ads run against Joe Biden in 2020 that claimed he was a weak-on-crime, out-of-the-mainstream radical. They didn’t do the trick because most Americans had a well-formed image of the former veep. In this election season, it does seem that the fusillade of attack ads against Barnes in Wisconsin stymied his momentum. 

The original attacks ads were highly successful in defining the candidate they aimed to thwart. I was reminded of this while watching the new PBS documentary, The First Attack Ads: Hollywood vs. Upton Sinclair. Directed by my old colleague Greg Mitchell, the film chronicles how the 1934 governor’s race in California yielded the first political ads on screen. Of course, since the founding of the nation, vicious assaults had been a mainstay of American politics. In the country’s first contested presidential campaign, John Adams’ supporters assailed Thomas Jefferson as an atheistic half-breed. After that, false and venomous political attacks routinely appeared in pamphlets, handbills, fliers, and newspapers, often accompanied by mocking cartoons and caricatures. Then radio provided a platform for paid-for political assaults. In 1934, the attacks infiltrated a new medium: the movies.

That year, during the Great Depression, Upton Sinclair, the bestselling novelist widely known for his muckraking novel The Jungle, which exposed the horrors of the meatpacking industry, won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in California. He had previously run twice for the position as a socialist and garnered few votes. Now it seemed he had a chance, and he was leading a vibrant grassroots movement dubbed End Poverty in California, which called for a giant public works projects and expansive social security programs. All that would probably require increased taxation on the wealthy. Business interests in California were aghast that Uppie the socialist might win, and this fear was most pronounced within a new and major industry in the state: Hollywood.

The studio titans, led by Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM, mounted a fierce and underhanded campaign against Sinclair. Slush funds, shadowy front groups, slanderous mailings, newspaper smears. The movie studios forced their top stars to donate money to the incumbent Republican governor, Frank Merriam. And then came the attack ads. Irving Thalberg, Mayer’s top producer (whose name you might recognize from the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award presented at the Academy Awards), cooked up short newsreel-like movies to be played before feature films in theaters across California. In those days, shorts—news reels, Laurel and Hardy, and the like—were popular offerings at a cinema. These Thalberg shorts looked like news, but they were propaganda functioning as attack ads. Yes, the first negative ads were literally “fake news.”

They featured an “enquiring reporter” doing people-on-the-street interviews and asking his subjects who they supported in the governor’s contest. The well-dressed subjects articulately explained their backing of Merriam. (“I want a job.”) Slovenly attired people and those speaking in foreign accents voiced their support for Sinclair and cheered his “radical” ideas, though noting he was unlikely to end poverty in California. It was, of course, a set-up, and some observers thought they spotted bit actors playing the interviewees. Another Thalberg-orchestrated short focused on the thousands of homeless men—hobos, as they were called then—flocking to California and suggested they were being drawn to the Golden State by the prospect of a Sinclair victory. Sound familiar? The Republicans were drumming up and exploiting the fear of migrants.

Sinclair and his allies complained mightily about the attack shorts. But the spots continued to play widely in theaters and were considered—then and now—to be effective in scaring voters. As notable political scientist Dean McHenry is quoted in the film, “The electorate was too frightened to put [Sinclair] in the governorship.” The attack ads—along with the entire anti-Sinclair operation—worked. He lost by 11 points to Merriam, while a centrist candidate bagged 13 percent. But a number of candidates running as part of Sinclair’s End Poverty in California movement were elected to other positions. This included a future governor. Sinclair returned to writing novels and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize.

Eighty-eight years after the birth of for-the-screen attack ads, they are a permanent and inescapable feature of American political life. At the time, Thalberg said of the anti-Sinclair campaign, “Nothing is unfair in politics.” Alas, many are still guided by that notion. Big money, dark money, disinformation, phony ads—it’s all happening today. In Illinois, a conservative radio host has distributed fake newspapers that contain racist articles apparently designed to persuade voters to vote against Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker. These pre-election weeks remind us that what Mayer and Thalberg initiated in 1934 became a long-running hit series. 

Got a comment on this item? Anything else to say? A tip or a lead? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.

Tulsi Gabbard’s Short, Strange Trip

There is something creepy about Tulsi Gabbard’s quick-paced journey from a Democratic gadfly who ran (and failed miserably) in the 2020 Democratic presidential contest to her new star-turn as an independent embracing Trumpism. After flaming out in that race, the onetime House member from Hawaii did endorse Joe Biden, demonstrating she still considered herself a Democrat, even though she had blasted the party for supposed transgressions. Yet two short years later, she now is campaigning for Republicans—and not just any Republicans but the Trumpiest of the bunch. The other day, Gabbard was in Arizona to endorse GOP gubernatorial contender Kari Lake, a leading Big Lie proponent who has connections to QAnonists and white nationalists.

What explains this? I took a look at the policy positions Gabbard advanced during her presidential bid. She called for comprehensive immigration reform and the passage of DACA to allow young adults who had been brought to the United States as children to gain legal status. She supported Medicare for All. She urged a robust effort to address climate change. She blasted Trump’s trade wars as “a disaster.” She supported addressing student debt and proposed guaranteeing college for all (while blasting Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos). She demanded immediate action on gun safety reform. She supported the first impeachment of Trump. She assailed Democrats for generally being overly interventionist in foreign policy, but she championed a platform in sync with the wishes of progressive Democrats. She also  apologized for “wrong” and “hurtful” remarks she had made regarding her past work for an anti-gay group run by her father, asserting “my views have changed significantly since then.” Sounds like she got woke.

What propels someone to go from all that to touting a far-right, Trump-luvin’ election denialist who vows that should she become governor she will declare an invasion at the border? Appearing on Fox (where else?), Gabbard explained her Lake endorsement by saying that Democrats “throw out lies and smears and attacks seeking to undermine the credibility of anyone who dares to challenge their narrative. This is the sort of thing that led me to leave the Democratic Party.” She complained that “woke fanatical ideologues” are controlling the party, and they are “against free speech, they’re against democracy, they’re against freedom of religion.” She further contended Democrats “actively undermining the foundational principles of this country. This is not something I can be aligned with.”

Really? The Democrats are a threat to democracy—rather than the party that has denied election results and supports a man who plotted to overthrow an election, who incited violence to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, and who has said he would, if elected president again, pardon the hundreds of domestic terrorists who brutally assaulted law enforcement officials on January 6? Of course, this makes absolutely no sense. Is Gabbard backing the GOP now because her feelings were hurt during the 2020 primary contest? During that campaign, Hillary Clinton suggested that Russian bots and websites were backing Gabbard and grooming her for a third-party bid, which would help Trump. Gabbard sued Clinton for defamation, asking for $50 million in damages. But then she dropped the lawsuit, saying she preferred to focus on the coronavirus pandemic and “defeating Donald Trump in 2020.”

Yet now Gabbard, the woke, lefty anti-Trumpist of 2020, backs a far-right candidate who baselessly claims Trump was not defeated. Is this simply a move for her to achieve political relevance? Or perhaps to gain a show on Fox? Her short, strange trip certainly warrants speculation and, no doubt, will prompt some to ponder conspiracy theory-like explanations. Whatever the cause, her transformation from an anti-Trump progressive to a pro-Lake, anti-woke-ist demonstrates her positions and values are ephemeral and perhaps transactional and that her word is meaningless.

Dumbass Comment of the Week

There is a fine line between dumbass comment and disinformation. The latter, though, tends to be more dangerous. And Blake Masters, the Republican challenging Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, this week showed how a stupid tweet can be rather damaging. On Twitter, he declared:

Absolutely insane that the CDC is going to add the COVID vaccine to the childhood immunization schedule. This isn't about "science” or health. I will always fight for freedom and to protect families and children. My opponent, Mark Kelly, is for Big Pharma and medical tyranny.

Masters was disseminating Covid misinformation. The Centers for Disease Control is not mandating Covid vaccination shots for children. It can’t. The agency doesn’t have this authority; state and local officials decide what vaccinations are required for schoolkids. Yet in recent days, this false claim about the CDC has become a right-wing talking point.

Not surprisingly, this falsehood originated with a Fox News contributor on Tuesday morning. By that evening, Tucker Carlson was denouncing the CDC for forcing kids to get the Covid shot. A tweet he posted with this fake news drew tens of thousands of likes. The next day Masters put out the above tweet. The day after that Erick Erickson, a conservative commentator, retweeted Masters’ tweet. Despite the efforts of public health officials to shoot it down, this phony contention spread throughout the right-wing echo chamber. With his tweet, Masters further demonstrated his desire to be a cog in the machine of Trumpism. (By the way, I recently wrote about the anti-Big Tech hypocrisy of Masters and Ohio GOP Senate candidate JD Vance. Check it out.)

This week’s victor makes a return trip to the winner’s circle. On Tuesday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-QAnon), put up a social media post reporting, “Tonight I stopped at the Wilder Monument in Chickamauga, GA, which honors the Confederate soldiers of the Wilder Brigade. I will always defend our nation’s history.”

There was one problem with her sophomoric attempt to own the libs: the Wilder Brigade was part of the Union Army. This unit was made up of “citizen soldiers” who mounted a daring charge to repel Confederate troops during the Battle of Chickamauga. This battle was one of the bloodiest confrontations of the Civil War; 35,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, captured, or went missing. For Greene, her visit to this site was not a moment to ponder the potentially horrific consequences of political division but to troll away and celebrate a force that fought to preserve white supremacy. After revealing her stupidity, Greene did edit the post to remove the adoring reference to the Confederacy. But the Our Land judges don’t accept do-overs. She triumphs this week for this clear display of ignorance and racism.

The Mailbag

This week, mail continued to come in about recent issues in which I and readers pondered Democratic messaging regarding the weeks-away midterm elections. Clay Fink wrote:

I am not sure what sort of messaging top-level Dems should be engaging in. What I do know is that there's an enormous grassroots effort right now to get Democrats elected at every level, to get out the vote, and to ensure people's votes are cast and counted via various voter protection efforts. I'm part of a few of these and I've never seen this level of engagement by Dems for off-year and midterm elections before. It's the kind of thing we should have been doing all along. It will take multiple election cycles to fix things, too. Whether we have further election cycles is another question, but that fear can't keep us from doing anything.  I generally think that arguments about what top level strategies top democrats should be engaging in are futile. It's up to us to get involved and keep working and that work won't end even if we win in November.

Good point. Political journalists (like me) and consumers of political journalism (like many of you) do tend to obsess over strategy and messaging. These are indeed crucial and worthy topics of examination. Yet the hammer-and-nails work of politics must carry the day: organizing, mobilizing, get-out-the-vote efforts. It’s hard to evaluate how well this is happening in congressional districts across the country. But Democrats ought to hope Clay’s observation is correct.

Susan Haywood emailed:

Can you publish a list of races that are the most important ones to be supporting? Thank you for all that you do. I just got your book in the mail. Also, can you suggest to MoJo that they stop using photos of Trump with articles? Anything else—protest signs?—instead of seeing his face and giving him free press. Wait til he's wearing an orange jumpsuit! It's free advertising.

Susan, that’s a long list. There are key Senate races in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Depending how you’re counting, you might also include New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Florida. And so much more: dozens of swing contests in House districts; important governor face-offs in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Texas, and Florida; secretary of state contests in Arizona, Nevada, and elsewhere; and key races for state attorney generals. Moreover, as the New York Times reports, “More than 370 people—a vast majority of Republicans running for these offices in November—have questioned and, at times, outright denied the results of the 2020 election despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.” I don’t know how you judge which ones are the most important. As long as a voter becomes engaged in any of them, he or she will be helping to determine the future of American democracy. Regarding the use of photos of Trump, I don’t think this does much in the way of free advertising for him. He’s already a well-known commodity, and I doubt a photo of him alongside a Mother Jones article helps him much. Hope you enjoy reading American Psychosis.  

Nancy Krempa had this to share:

I'm still slogging through your book, David, and am horrified anew at the revelations contained therein. I thought I knew a lot about the Clinton years and the incredible amount of persecution from the GOP. I didn't know half of what you've revealed. Just getting into the Bush years, and it is about as bad as I'd thought at the time. On a lighter note, however, this comment from Moxie struck me as some of the best wisdom from man or beast this week: “You should give it a try.” We should all give it a try to see each day as special, I think. If some across the political divide did so, perhaps the rhetoric might soften, even just a fraction. 

Not sure I would call it “slogging.” Some people tell me they find American Psychosis a rather spritely read. And for those who missed it, Nancy was referring to this episode of MoxieCam™:

Thomas Cleaver responded to my reference to Rachel Maddow’s new podcast, which I am currently enjoying.

You should definitely listen to Ultra. As an historian deeply interested in that period, I thought I knew all about those events, but she has come up with stuff I didn't get close to. And it definitely proves that history "rhymes." Herewith a story: When I first came to Hollywood, I had the good fortune to meet some of the "old guys" from the "golden age," and out of that I got introduced to Billy Wilder, who decided I was smart enough to be brought into his orbit. I was really the only person left who hadn't heard his stories 10,000 times, but hearing the stories over lunch twice a month for three years was a post-doctoral education in Duh Biz— and other things.

I always remember his story about the Nazis. He recognized them for what they were in 1928 [when Wilder was a screenwriter living in Berlin] and started sounding the alarm to his friends—all of whom told him he was worrying about "a bunch of clowns" and was wasting his time. He said, "By the time the elections of 1932 came, my friends considered me a crank on the subject of the Nazis." The night the Nazis got their plurality in January 1933 and Hitler was called to the presidential palace, Wilder packed everything of value in a steamer trunk, caught a cab to the Berlin rail station, and bought a one-way ticket on the Paris Express. He said, "I came back 12 years later, to find all my friends were dead. Killed by the clowns."

Cathryn Cotter chimed in:

I read your column and bought your book. Both very enjoyable. However, I'm getting turned off and don't think I will get a paid subscription as you frequently throw in how wonderful people think your column is. It's a little self-aggrandizing and unappealing. I am only one reader, and I understand that you are trying to get readers to pay for a subscription. I am glad you are around and continue to help wake up the masses—and validate my way of thinking.

Oh well.

Mary Ellen Pitts had a different complaint:

I am disappointed, weekly, that I cannot post your newsletter to my Facebook account!  I would like a "ready copy" to reread and also to share with those of like-minded fear. Is there any way I could post? Please tell me how to do it.  (I am an aging baby-boomer, and not too tech-savvy.  I'm lucky to figure out how to donate/subscribe to the publications that I find so valuable.) Thanks!    

First, I am so glad you figured out how to subscribe. Thank you. As I’ve noted before, this newsletter exists to provide premium material to subscribers. As much as I like to see my work widely shared—which is what often happens with the articles I publish in Mother Jones and on its website—there is no easy way to disseminate this newsletter and include a share button for Facebook and other social media. Subscribers can forward the newsletter via email to friends and strangers (and they can set up a group email list to do so) or cut and paste its contents into social media posts. I highly encourage these less convenient actions and ask you to let recipients know they can subscribe at davidcorn.com.

Pen Harms, a loyal reader, is a good role model:

Took your advice and did a post on Facebook, the first item being your newsletter. I hope that my FB people (mostly animal lovers) will read it and follow instructions. Just wanted to help the "wake up call.”

Speaking of animal lovers….

MoxieCam™

“Are you going to throw that ball or what?”

“Moxie, I’m about to.”

“I’ve waited all day for these 15 minutes.”

“I know. I get it. I realize it’s important for you.”

“Great. I feel seen. Now throw the ball.”

Read Previous Issues of Our Land

October 18, 2022: John Durham confirms Donald Turmp is a liar; the big takeaway from the Cuban missile crisis; a new Bruce Springsteen tune; Bill Berry return to rock ‘n’ roll; and more.

October 15, 2022: The Mailbag: should you worry about the midterms; the final January 6 committee hearing; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Charlie Kirk); MoxieCam™; and more.

October 12, 2022: Time to push the panic button on the midterms?; Servants of the Damned and the law firm that’s Trump’s modern-day Roy Cohn; and more.

October 8, 2022: Can the centrists hold in the era of Donald Trump?; American Psychosis in the news; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Special Herschel Walker edition); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

October 4, 2022: American Psychosis, Facebook, and a dog; a denizen of the economic establishment admits the elite’s big mistakes; Topdog/Underdog’s brilliance hits Broadway; and more.

October 1, 2022: How Giorgia Meloni’s win in Italy helps us understand a US Senate race; American Psychosis in the news; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Ben Stein); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

September 27, 2022: Stormy Daniels, AOC, and the long arc of Donald Trump’s possible downfall; American Psychosis in the news; Skullduggery and the Havana Syndrome; the New York Times agrees about Mark Finchem; and more.

September 24, 2022: The craziest GOP candidate in the nation; American Psychosis becomes a bestseller; Dumbass Comment of the Week (FPOTUS); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

September 21, 2022: Donald Trump and the birth of QMaga; American Psychosis in the news; House of the Dragon versus The Rings of Power; and more.

September 17, 2022: American Psychosis and the reckoning of history; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

September 13: What Barack Obama said to me about the 47 percent video; the release of American Psychosis; and more.

September 10, 2022: A death in Washington and a very Trumpian conspiracy theory; American Psychosis update; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Donald Trump Jr.); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

September 7, 2022: Donald Trump and gaslight fascism; the conservative crazy gets crazier; American Psychosis: the first review; a brilliant after-the-Vietnam War novel and Dark Winds; and more.

Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.