Political Campaign Fear Mongering in an Age of Terrorism

With an upcoming presidential election comes a flurry of campaign advertisements on television. While some campaigns may choose to take a positive approach, highlighting the candidate’s accomplishments and strengths, other campaigns choose to use negative advertisements which degrade their opponents or radicalize specific issues. Regardless of political affiliation, members of both parties have drawn upon the fear of terrorism our country and other countries face to scare voters into choosing the candidate that defends a person against that fear. Scholars refer to this concept of intentionally provoking fear of a certain issue among the general public as fear mongering (Glassner, 2004). While fear mongering is used in a variety of platforms, fear mongering in presidential elections has more widespread effects as most of America watches the presidential campaign commercials and debates in order to gain knowledge on the candidates and conclude for whom to vote. By analyzing how previous presidential campaigns have used television advertisements to promote a fear of terrorism, one can evaluate how appealing to the fear of terrorism in America in presidential election campaigns has evolved and how negative advertising creates a high level of fear in the media.

In order to evaluate how presidential candidates use fear to further their own political agendas, one must understand the nature of fear and how the fear of terrorism can affect a person’s decision making abilities. According to psychologists Jacek Debiec and Joseph LeDoux, fear can be defined as a “feeling that results when the defense system is active in a brain that has the capacity for self-awareness;” it is a natural aspect of life which happens when humans feel threatened. Once someone recognizes their fear, that fear becomes a “powerful force in the brain, and should not be instilled casually” (Debiec & LeDoux, 2004). Contrary to the scientists warning of not instilling fear casually, numerous politicians still use fear as a means of persuading voters to support them. Al Gore criticizes these politicians by saying that provoking the fear of terrorism is the “ultimate misuse” of fear and those who use terrorism for political means are trying to “distort the political reality of a nation by creating fear in the general population that is hugely disproportionate to the actual dangers that the terrorists are capable of posing” (Gore, 2004). Although it has evolved and taken on several different forms, this concept of fear mongering and of disproportionate levels of fear can be seen in several political campaign advertisements ranging from the Johnson campaign in 1964 to the most recent campaigns of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

One of the first and most prominent examples of fear mongering in televised political advertisements includes Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Daisy” sixty-second commercial. The advertisement depicts a little girl in the middle of a field counting out loud as she picks the petals off of a daisy flower. All of the sudden, a loud voiceover begins to countdown from ten, and at the end of the countdown, a nuclear bomb erupts. Because of the heightened fear of nuclear attacks by the Soviet Union in the 1960’s, the Johnson campaign was able to target a popular fear among the public and use it to their advantage. The key message the campaign wanted voters to take away from the advertisement was that if they do not vote for Johnson, the country will engage in nuclear warfare and be a susceptible target to other countries. In order for the advertisement to be effective according to the nature of fear, a threat, regardless of if it was a real possibility or not, needed to be made. Despite the advertisement being so eye catching and controversial, the ad only appeared on television once and did not receive an overwhelming amount of news coverage compared to other presidential commercials at the time (Geer, 2012). In addition, the advertisement did not sway the likelihood of people voting for Johnson’s opponent, Goldwater, as his numbers remained virtually unchanged after the advertisement ran.

Even though the Daisy advertisement did not sway voters away from voting for Goldwater, the advertisement was far from a failure. While the political commercial did not influence the decision of the voters, the advertisement did alter the mindset of the voters, as the fear of a nuclear war under Goldwater’s leadership increased among Americans (Geer, 2012). Moreover, it is crucial to evaluate the logic behind voters when determining for which candidate to vote and how that logic has evolved since the Johnson vs Goldwater election. The goal in the majority of the Johnson advertisements was not only to instill the fear of nuclear warfare in all Americans, but also to frame Johnson as a more rational leader who would carefully handle our nation’s military efforts. As opposed to many of the advertisements airing today that target the character of a candidate, the Johnson campaign focused on the issue of nuclear warfare which proved to have a stronger impact on the election.

Over fifty years later, the Daisy advertisement remains one of the most popular advertisements in campaign history. John Geer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University, attributes the current status of the advertisement to the rising status of negative advertising and the relevancy to current dialogue in the media today (Geer, 2012). Because of the old advertisement still being talked about today, the campaign of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to release an advertisement against Donald Trump in the most recent presidential election using the little girl who starred in the ad. In the advertisement, the now mid-fifty-year-old woman speaks out about the fear of nuclear weapons reappearing in society today due to the election (Merica, 2016). The commercial transitions to political commentators addressing Donald Trump’s stance on nuclear weapons, implying that Americans cannot trust Donald Trump with nuclear weapons or to be the Commander in Chief of our military.

While the Daisy advertisement the Johnson campaign released has incurred a vast amount of media coverage over the years, Clinton’s spin on the Daisy advertisement did not. This can be attributed to a number of things including the fact that Americans are not as fearful of nuclear attacks as they were in the 1960’s. As discussed earlier, in order to fear to develop in one’s mind, someone must consider a threat to be present. In this case, the threat of a nuclear war was not as present as other threats our nation faces; therefore the advertisement did not instill the same level of fear in Americans today as it did in the 1960’s. In addition, the majority of advertisements aired in the most recent election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton did not focus on their strengths, but rather each candidate targeted the other candidate’s weaknesses and scandals. Because of this popularity of negative advertising, the revisiting of the now popular Daisy advertisement by Hillary Clinton did not gain an overwhelming amount of media coverage.

Just like Johnson used the fear of nuclear warfare to highlight the importance of who would be making upcoming nuclear decisions and create fear among the general public in 1964, several politicians have used the attacks on 9/11 to emphasize national security and the fear of terrorism. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, presidential candidates began portraying pictures and videos from the tragedy into their political advertisements as the public’s fear of another attack in the homeland was at an all time high. For example, in the 2004 presidential race between George W. Bush and John Kerry, the Bush campaign released several ads criticizing John Kerry’s vote to slash funding for intelligence and “weapons vital to the war” in Iraq after the attacks. One advertisement concludes with a rhetorical question, imploring if electing Kerry is worth the risk of another terrorist attack. The overall message the creators aimed for the public to takeaway includes that America is still in danger and in order to keep America safe from terrorism, Bush needs to be elected (Rutenberg, 2004).

Due to the Bush advertisements questioning the decisions made by Kerry in the past and shaping them in an undesirable light, the commercials can be categorized as negative issue ads. According to political scientist professor Yanna Krupnikov at Stony Brook University, negative issue ads have a “significant, positive effect on the selection” of candidates, and “issue ads are more likely than character ads to contain information that is useful for decision making” (Krupnikov, 2012). Because the fear of another attack on U.S. soil was so prominent around the time of the election, Bush was able to successfully launch an issue ad that not only emphasized the fear of terrorism but also highlighted the fear of having an anti-war president. Furthermore, at the time Bush was campaigning for his second term, 59% of Americans disapproved how he had handled the economy in his first term. However, the fact that nearly 80% of Americans were worried or somewhat worried that another terrorist attack similar to 9/11 would take place allowed Bush administration to clinch the win (Abramson, Aldrich, Rickershauser & Rohde, 2007). The willingness of Americans to sacrifice policies which would normally be of high importance in other elections displays the high level of fear at the time and also displays how Americans value a sense of safety above almost everything else.

Although a major terrorist attack has not occurred on America soil since the attacks on September 11th, terrorist attacks in other nations have caused the fear of terrorism to rise in America over the past few years (Engel, 2016). In the most recent presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, both candidates prioritized the safety of our country against outside terrorism threats, instead of other, more threatening issues of violence, when slightly over one hundred people have been killed by terrorists in the United States since the attacks in 2001(Ilich, 2016). While that number may seem high to some, one must consider that it has been over 15 years since the attacks on 9/11, and hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost by other methods. Nonetheless, the candidates’ both used specific rhetoric and scare tactics in their advertisements and speeches in order to lead Americans into thinking that ISIS, and the threat the group poses to Americans, is their biggest concern. By elaborating on the magnitude of the threat ISIS poses to Americans and by continually discussing the potential threat of terrorism in our country, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have caused the fear of terrorism to rise to an incredibly high level as a tactic to promote their own campaigns. In her advertisements, Hillary Clinton has manipulated the fear of Americans by discussing the imminent threat of ISIS and persuading Americans that she should handle our foreign affairs as she has more experience in the matter. Controversially, Donald Trump has released numerous advertisements arguing that ISIS was created under the supervision of Hillary Clinton and has used her email scandal to argue that she cannot handle the responsibility of the Commander in Chief of the United States.

The most recent election displays the evolution of fear based appeals in the political advertising sector. Even though Donald Trump did make the public more aware of several key issues such as immigration and border security, he did so by using extreme rhetoric and scaring Americans. In order to promote his concept of building a wall between America and Mexico among voters, Donald Trump needed to create a threat and did so by continually preaching that millions of Mexicans entering our country illegally were dangerous criminals, including murderers and drug dealers. While Donald Trump has targeted Hillary Clinton in several advertisements relating to her past decisions made while she served as Secretary of State, the Clinton campaign could not use the same tactic of criticizing past political decisions. Rather, because of the lack of political experience that Donald Trump has, the Clinton campaign had to focus more on releasing negative character advertisements as opposed to negative issue advertisements. As stated earlier, negative issue ads have proven to be more successful than character advertisements that may have attributed to her lack of success in swaying voters’ opinions.

Another reason that political advertisements targeting voters’ fears evolve includes the events taking place at the time of the election. During the Johnson vs Goldwater election, the Johnson campaign was able to capitalize on the fear of nuclear weapons due to the timeline of the election being shortly after the Cuban missile crisis. Similarly, the Bush campaign could highlight the fear of terrorism and national security concerns due to the 2004 election being just three years after the attacks on September 11th. However, now that Americans do not have as immediate of a reason to fear another large terrorist attack on America soil, politicians have begun to use the catastrophes of terrorism in other nations to promote the fear of a similar attack in our own country. Advertisements have gone from using American events, such as 9/11, to create fear among voters, to using dramatic examples of terrorism in other countries in attempt to instill the fear that the terrorism happening in other countries could move to the United States if the proper leader is not elected to handle our foreign affairs.

While negative advertising and fear mongering may have had positive effects on getting certain candidates elected and increasing voter turnout, the ads had negative effects on the mindset of the American people. Americans have been continually misled by politicians into thinking that the threat of terrorism is larger than in reality. The threat that ISIS presents is not to be taken lightly; however, Americans must base their fear on actuality and remember that even though large terrorist attacks are occurring in other countries, an attack such as those has not occurred in the United States in over 15 years.

References

Abramson, P., Aldrich, J., Rickershauser, J., & Rohde, D. (2007). Fear in the Voting Booth: The 2004 Presidential Election. Political Behavior, 29(2), 197–220. doi:10.1007/s11109–006–9018–1

Debiec, J., & LeDoux, J. (2004). Fear and the Brain. Social Research, 71(4), 807–818.

Engel, P. (2016, September 11). The terrorist threat is worse now than it was before 9/11. Retrieved November 17, 2016, from http://www.businessinsider.com/are-we-safer-now-than-on-911-2016-9/comments.rss

Geer, J. (2012). The News Media and the Rise of Negativity in Presidential Campaigns. PS: Political Science and Politics, 45(3), 422–427. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41691356

Glassner, B. (2004). Narrative Techniques of Fear Mongering. Social Research, 71(4), 819–826.

Ilich, B. (2016, September 09). The United States After 9/11: How Many Major Terrorist Attacks Have There Been In America Since 2001? Retrieved November 17, 2016, from http://www.ibtimes.com/united-states-after-911-how-many-major-terrorist-attacks-have-there-been-america-2001-2414070

Krupnikov, Y. (2012). Negative Advertising and Voter Choice: The Role of Ads in Candidate Selection. Political Communication, 29(4), 387–413. doi:10.1080/10584609.2012.721868

Merica, D. (2016, October 31). Hillary Clinton enlists ‘Daisy’ from 1964 ad. Retrieved November 16, 2016, from http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/31/politics/daisy-ad-hillary-clinton-trump-nuclear/index.html

Rutenberg, J. (2004, March 03). Bush Ad Campaign Ready to Kick Off An Expensive Effort. Retrieved November 16, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/04/us/2004-campaign-advertising-bush-ad-campaign-ready-kick-off-expensive-effort.html