A recent ad created by a super PAC for Donald Trump and shared by the former president’s official Facebook page purports that Americans were “better off” under his watch than they are under current President Joe Biden, depicting a series of pictures meant to stir up feelings of fear and xenophobia in viewers. Some images in the ad, however, supposedly depicting events from Biden’s time in office, were actually from Trump’s presidential tenure.
The ad falsely says that the “border is wide open” and derides high inflation rates that experts have repeatedly said are not attributable to Biden’s policies. It urges viewers to donate to the super PAC.
Images depicting higher gas prices, a surveillance balloon from China, a family of migrants wading in water and a police vehicle set on fire are included in the ad. Juxtaposed front and center in the ad is a picture of Biden.
“Were you not better off before Biden?” asks the post, which was shared by Trump’s Save America PAC on Facebook last week.
According to a basic investigation by Forbes contributor Matt Novak, at least two of the images were from Trump’s time as president, while the other two are highly misleading and lack context.
The image of the police vehicle being set ablaze, for example, happened in Chicago, Illinois, on May 30, 2020 — around eight months prior to Trump leaving office. The action occurred during the uprisings that took place in response to the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black individuals.
The image of the migrant family wading through waters also happened during the Trump presidency. Although the ad implies these individuals were crossing into the U.S., they were actually traveling south, from Mexico into Guatemala, according to the caption on the photo by an Associated Press contributor.
The other two images included in the ad are misleading and taken out of context. The wording of the ad, coupled with the image of the Chinese surveillance balloon that officials recently shot down, for example, is meant to suggest that such a thing would never happen with Trump in the White House again. However, a senior U.S. defense official recently claimed that similar balloons flew into U.S. airspace at least three times while Trump was president, too.
Context is also missing within the portion of the ad depicting a change in gas prices. Gas prices did indeed decline under Trump, but this was not due to any policy he enacted — rather, it was caused by a tremendous decline in demand, brought on by stay-at-home policies that were enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Further, most economists agree and have been saying for years that presidents have very little to do with the rising or declining costs of gasoline. Rather, supply and demand changes, which are largely controlled (and manipulated) by oil companies themselves, dictate prices at the pump — a fact that contradicts the implications being made in Trump’s Facebook ad.
The misuse and obfuscation of imagery in political advertising is nothing new. However, it appears that Republicans aim to make misinformation a regular and standard practice in the 2024 presidential election cycle.
Much like the Save America PAC, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has also produced advertising attacking Biden using images that were misleading. After Biden announced he was running for reelection, the RNC put out an ad that depicted a hellish dystopian future — but rather than use actual imagery, the advertisement depended wholly on AI-generated imagery to get its point across.
Both Biden and Trump are considered the frontrunners for their respective parties’ nominations for the 2024 presidential election, setting up a rematch of the 2020 race. Polling suggests the election will be a close one, with a recently published Emerson College poll showing that Biden is ahead of Trump by just 2 points. That number is within the poll’s 2.9 percent margin of error, and 6 percent of respondents in the poll said they are undecided at this time.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.