President Donald Trump posts questionable advertisement
On Nov. 1, five days prior to the 2018 midterm election, President Donald Trump tweeted a new advertisement video depicting Central Americans as cop killers.
The ad features Luis Bracamontes, a Mexican man who was deported multiple times but ultimately returned to the United States. In 2014, Bracamontes was convicted in the slayings of two Calfornia cops.
Most of the ad shows Bracamontes’ courtroom behavior in which he says, “I’m going to kill more cops soon,” while grinning. A caption in the ad then says, “Democrats let him into our country. Democrats let him stay.”
Critics of the ad have called out its similarity to an ad released in 1988 about Willie Horton that played into white fear and cost Michael Dukakis the 1988 presidential election. Others have pointed out the ad’s misleading message.
According to records, Bracamontes last entered the country between May 2001 and February 2002 when George W. Bush was president. Bracamontes was also arrested on drug charges in Arizona but was later released by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. At the time, the office was under the leadership of Sheriff Joe Arpaio who was notorious for being tough on immigration.
Robocalls attack a black gubernatorial candidate
In the final days leading up to the close Georgia gubernatorial race between black Democrat Stacey Abrams and white Republican Brian Kemp, white supremacists have called Georgians with racist robocalls, automated phone calls that deliver pre-recorded messages, as if from robots.
The robocalls impersonate Oprah Winfrey, who traveled to Georgia on Nov. 1 to help Abrams with her election campaign. Both Kemp and Abrams have condemned the call filled with racist and anti-Semitic sentiments.
The robocall which reached an unknown number of Georgians was paid for by The Road to Power, a white supremacist group organized by Idaho citizen Scott Rhodes. Rhodes has produced several racist robocalls in Florida as well that attacked gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum who will become the first black governor in Florida’s history if elected.
If elected, Abrams would be the first black female governor of Georgia.
