Sunday, April 19, 2020

The Biden campaign's "Yellow Peril" ads are just bad

Today's [deep sigh] #1: So the Biden campaign is really framing their COVID-19 crisis criticism of Trump around the idea that Trump is too weak on the Yellow Peril?

Seriously? I find this seriously disturbing: this looks like the current media strategy really is a "Yellow Peril" theme. Because the way to beat Donald Trump is to out-jingo him on narrow nationalism and white racism?

Here's the campaign's YouTube video dated 04/19/2020, Trump's Rewriting History:


Trying to reverse-engineer whatever coke-distorted thought process came up with this angle and propaganda arguments connnected to it, I would say they are probably going at three kinds of appeal: (1) We're more jingoistic than the Republicans, a lifelong theme for Iraq War Joe; (2) we're tough on non-white minorities, also a consistent theme for Joe "Crime Bill" Biden; (3) we're going to pretend that we'll defend American workers against bad trade deals, because that's a standard part of the scam for politicians like Biden who are all-in on corporate-deregulation "trade" treaties.

This uses a standard technique of xenophobic propaganda: talking about the "coronavirus" while saying "China" over and over again and showing photo after photo of Chinese people with masks. I can't honestly put any kind of pretty spin on this. It's message is disease-China-China-disease-Chinese people-scary foreigners-Chinese people-China. With a white-haired white guy narrating the piece.

It even literally uses the phrase "soft on China". I would be very surprised if the campaign surrogates haven't been coached to say things like, "Oh, it doesn't say 'Who lost China?' so it's fine!

The Joe Biden YouTube channel also features several short versions of the Coronavirus Yellow Peril spot. I'm not directly linking them because I already feel guilty posting the one above even in the context of a critical commentary. But that's the real existing Democratic Party now headed by Joe Biden.

Talking about real issues with China will be a central theme of world politics for the foreseeable future, because they will be the dominant economic power in the world for decades to come.

But "Yellow Peril" demagoguery is destructive and wrong. Period. Full stop.

There's a 17-minute "Biden Brunch" video there, too, a decently perky, safe Democratic piece, that starts off with the narration: "Who are we? We're the ones who step up for each other. I've got your back, you've got mine. Kindness. Humility. Empathy."

Unfortunately, the "Yellow Peril" spots say something else.

But NeverTrumper Joe Scarborough is on board:

So is Anne Applebaum:
But I'm inclined to think that Nomiki Konst is right about the thinking behind this strategy:
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